Famous scientist Isaac Newton is most well-known for his discovery of the laws of gravity. But did you know that he also studied the composition of light and discovered the visible color spectrum? He realized that, when sunlight passes through a prism, it is divided into seven colors that can be seen with the naked eye: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. When he presented his findings, he used a Color Wheel to show how these seven colors are mixed together to create a white light!
You and your child can make a simple Newton Color Wheel together at home! Here’s what you’ll need:
- A Color Wheel Template (or cut out a circle from white paper and divide it into six even sections)
- Markers (re, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple)
- Scissors
- Cardboard
- Glue
- One nail
- String (8 feet)
First, cut out your paper Color Wheel and color in each section with a different colored marker. Then lay the wheel on your piece of cardboard and trace the edge. Cut out the cardboard circle and glue your color wheel to it.
Using a small nail, punch two holes in the center of your Color Wheel. Fold your string in half and insert one end into each hole. Pull the string through so that each side is even and tie the two ends together.
Hold one end of the string in each hand and start spinning the wheel toward yourself. Keep spinning until the string tightens and twists towards the wheel. When the string seems very tight and twisted, pull it apart to spin the Color Wheel (pull harder to make it spin faster).
Watch the colors blur, and hopefully disappear and turn to white (or close to it)! How does this work? When you spin the disc, you are blending all of the different wavelengths of colored light together. Just like sunlight, all of these colors come together to make white!
Check out the full experiment and more of the science behind it from Little Bins for Little Hands HERE.
As always, get as creative as you want, and above all, have lots of fun learning together!
We’ll see you right back here next Saturday for another STEAM Saturday activity! Scroll through the rest of our website to learn how Critchlow Adkins is Building Brighter Futures for the children and families we serve!
