Color ... it's not just for art anymore!

This week, in true STEAM style (STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math), we merged our art studies of the color wheel with our science investigations as we observed what happens when you mix drops of food coloring and dish soap into dishes of milk. What we observed was an explosion of colors!

When we made our own color wheels, we used pastels to blend the primary colors and created secondary colors.  This week, using this great lesson on color from Mensa for Kids: http://www.mensaforkids.org/teach/lesson-plans/introduction-to-color/, we examined the primary and secondary colors used in some famous works of art and then tried reproducing this painting using complementary colors (opposites on the color wheel).

We noticed that switching the colors gave the painting a very different feel - some students noted it seemed darker and more sad, others that the man's clothes stood out more than his face.

Next we tried changing the color of milk, using drops of the primary colors and touching the surface with a cotton swab dipped in dish soap.

Here's what we observed, what we thought happened, and what we wondered:

Tune in soon to find out how we learn to turn an observation into an experiment. (Science Fair, here we come!)