One of the Science Main Lessons offered in Class 12 is “The Science of Colour”. Colour is the theme, but the science needed to understand it requires a cross-disciplinary approach – Chemistry, Physics, Biology and Psychology, and a touch of Philosophy as well.
Students learn how fireworks are produced and why the Aurora Borealis occurs and produces its distinctive colours. Through a range of hands-on practical activities, students begin to understand the complex nature of light and its properties — absorption, reflection, refraction and scattering. Combinations of these properties allow us to see our world in vivid colour and produce many of the phenomena that we observe in the world, like rainbows, blue skies and coloured sunsets.
The colour theories of Geothe and Newton are compared, after first reproducing the experiments that led each scientist to their insights. The big questions about the difference between seeing and perceiving are also tackled. In this photo, two year 12 students blow bubbles, which produce rainbows due to the refraction and reflection of light through the water trapped between two thin layers of detergent.
