written by Rebecca E. Vieyra and Caroline Hall

In this lesson, Part 2 of our Color Science trilogy, students use colored candies, LED lamps, and/or smartphone flashlight apps to further investigate color perception. A red light source, green light source, and blue light source will be separately shone on opaque candies of varying color (i.e., M&Ms) and translucent candies (Gummi bears). This allows learners to predict how color perception changes through light filtration or color mixing. The activity explores how pigments are similar to filters (and work by subtraction of light). Part 1 of Color Science explored RGB color addition; this lesson carries the idea forward to examine the colors cyan, magenta, and yellow (CMY). These are known as the Primary Subtractive Colors because they can be formed by subtracting one of the Primary Additive Colors (red, green, or blue) from white light.

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Released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license. Copyright 2016, American Association of Physics Teachers

Published June 15, 2016
Last Modified June 2, 2017

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by Rebecca Vieyra and Caroline Hall

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Released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license. Copyright 2017, American Association of Physics Teachers

Published May 30, 2017
Last Modified June 2, 2017