Today in Year 6, we explored the science of refraction and how white light can be separated into its different colours. Using prisms, pupils directed beams of white light and produced small rainbows—this showed us how light bends and splits as it passes through a new medium. We learned how this process, called refraction, happens because light changes speed when it moves from one material to another. We discussed how light bends towards the normal when it slows down, just like the way a straw looks bent or distorted in a glass of water.
To build on this, we recreated Newton’s colour wheels and tested whether spinning a coloured disc fast enough would make the colours blend back into white light. The class loved seeing science in action and discovering that white light really is a mixture of all the colours of the spectrum.
A brilliant afternoon!
