The students should have finished their Genius Hour projects this week and should be ready to present their research and projects next week! Next week as many students as possible will share their projects, reflect on their experience, and give/receive peer feedback.

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WHEW! Today was a busy day with the 3rd graders. We started the day by reviewing the electromagnetic spectrum/light information we have learned so far. This spanned from wave vocabulary to light's physical properties to how light reacts to different objects. The students worked in groups to create light graffiti walls and then compared and contrasted their group's understanding with other groups'.

Next the students learned the words reflection and refraction. (They might not have these terms totally locked in yet.) They learned that reflection is when light bounces off of something and refraction is when light is bent. They learned that the color we see is the light wavelength that the substance reflects. For example, leaves tend to absorb all of the visible spectrum except for green (500-570nm wavelength). The students got to look at the classroom through prism glasses and had fun experimenting with different light sources.

They learned that the primary colors of light (additive) are red, green, and blue, and when they are mixed together, they make white. They looked at computer pixels through electric microscopes to see the red, green, and blue pixels. They learned that cyan, magenta, and yellow are the primary pigment (subtractive) colors. They viewed printed materials under the microscope to see the tiny dots that are overlapped to print in color.

At the end of class, each student made a Newton disc (with varying levels of success due to the weight of our discs. haha) Here is a video of how it should work. When the disc of the colors of the rainbow (or just red, green, and blue) is spun, the colors blend to make white/light grey.

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