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What is color made of? |
Our Planet
Believe it or not, but the reason we have color is because we have light! Color is the way our eyes interpret the energies contained within a beam of light!
The energies of light contain a large spectrum of colors. When light touches an object, some of these energies are absorbed (taken in) by it, and others are reflected (cast back). – It’s the energies that are reflected which your eyes collect and then interpret as a specific color!
This means that when certain energies are reflected, your eyes interpret them to make you recognize that a banana is yellow, your friend has purple shoes, and your grandma’s hair is white!
- It might be a little confusing to think that a banana is yellow on the outside even though it has absorbed and taken the energies of many other colors. An object does not ever release the energies of the colors it has absorbed – instead, it carries them around forever! Try thinking about it like this: even though an object is a certain color, it still loves other colors too! So every object in the world, no matter what color it is, is carrying around all of the other colors!
- The energies of light contain a huge spectrum of colors! If you’ve ever seen a color wheel, then you already know that there are an endless number of shades that any one color can be! – However, some people refer to “the seven colors of light”: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. In any given beam of light, the energies can contain many more colors than just these seven, but sometimes these seven are named and used like “bookmarks” to separate the endless colors into portions!
Color Cars!
Here's a fun project about colors that you and a grown-up can try!
First, get the supplies you'll need: tempera paint in red, blue, and yellow; 3 inexpensive toy cars; and some blank paper.
Pour a little of each paint into a shallow dish. Dip the wheels of one toy car into one of the paint colors, and then drive the car along the paper so that it leaves behind some paint tracks.
Next, dip the wheels of a second toy car into a different color of paint, and drive it across the same paper, making sure to drive over the tracks of the first car at least a little bit.
Finally, repeat this process with the third car and the third color.
Now look at your paper… what do you notice? Does something interesting happen where the colors intersect with each other? You are probably noticing that the yellow and red made orange, the red and blue made purple, and the blue and yellow made green!
