Elementary Science Experiments: Mathematics and Color Wheels

The science of color is so much more than just an artist's palette. Colors can help us distinguish between edible and poisonous plants, as well as safe versus venomous creatures. We see color around us in our everyday lives in plants, flowers, and wildlife; whether living in the city, country, or gazing out into space.

Black & White

Neither black nor white are part of the established color wheel. Although both are important in artistic shading, available as paint, markers, and crayon colors, they are not true colors at all.

White is the lack of color as noticed by white fur on a polar bear due to the lack of pigment in the skin, or perhaps this discovery was already made on a family pet. Although white is an important mixing agent, to lighten-up other colors, it is merely a place holder similar to a zero in mathematics (lack of numbers/lack of pigment).

Black is not a color either, but represents every color mixed together, similar to the algebraic infinity of all the numbers. Unfortunately science refers to space as black nothingness, a void with empty, black holes. When in actuality space, as black as it may appear in the nighttime sky, includes every star in every galaxy, and all the planets and moons, of every known and unknown solar system.

Black can also be presumed to be a space holder, one which includes everything. The mixture of all colors, we know as black, makes a great background shade, and is effectively used to darken any other color in small amounts, before consuming it entirely.

Primary & Secondary Colors

There are only 3 primary colors; red, blue, and yellow, which are the lowest common denominator of colors. All other colors are created from these 3 basic colors with various shadings and tints added.

There are also only 3 secondary colors, made directly by mixing equal parts of the 3 primary shades above. Those colors are purple (equal parts red and blue), green (equal parts blue and yellow), and orange (equal parts yellow and red).

Making the Color Wheel

The only supplies necessary for this lesson:

- Inexpensive white paper plates

- Marking pens or crayons, in primary colors of Red, Blue, and Yellow

- Protractors

- Pencils

Integrate geometry into making the color wheel by using protractors on the inner paper-plate circle, dividing 180 degrees into 6 equal, 30 degree angles (or pie slices) in pencil. Begin coloring the top 3 sections (half the circle) with the yellow marker or crayon.

Next using the red marker or crayon, and overlapping one of the last yellow sections, color in 3 consecutive red sections (half circle). Then using the blue marker, and overlapping the last red section and the first yellow section, color in 3 blue sections (half again). Explain how three halves only make a whole due to the overlapping colors.

Labeling the Color Wheel

Your student's color wheel should read clockwise: yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, and green. Label the primary colors in capitol letters, such as YELLOW, RED, and BLUE, then label the secondary colors in lower case letters for orange, purple, and green.

Label the outer rim of the paper plate White, and draw a small 2" circle at the center point (coloring with all colors) and label it Black. On the back side of the color wheel have your students choose any two opposing primary and secondary colors, to prove the color brown.

For instance, the opposite colors YELLOW plus purple will give you brown, RED plus green make brown, and so will BLUE when mixed with orange. Try all three combinations on the back, and label these Brown.

Colors in Science

The color wheel can be used in botany lessons, demonstrating the changing colors of leaves in the fall, to show the sun's reflection of rain droplets creating a rainbow, or by holding a prism up to the sunshine. Colors can be related to natural sciences, and also to man-made technology in the form of color psychology.

Color psychology is used in decorating and interior designing. Soft shades of pink, blue, yellow and green are often used in cardiac-care wards of hospitals due to the soothing effects. Prisons also use pastel-color walls to keep inmates calm.

Many classrooms are painted in shades of yellow to stimulate little brains to learn, however yellow becomes annoying as we get older. We see the color-coded warnings on traffic signs and automobile signals. With rainbows of color around us, shown in earth layers, bodies of water, in the sky, and out to space; each one tells a different story. Using all the same colors we begin to see distinct patterns emerge.