В2 Additive Color Model and Vision
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INVESTIGATION B2 Collaborative Learning This investigation is Exploros-enabled for tablets. See page xiii for details. B2 Additive Color Model and Vision Key Question: How do we see color? In this investigation, students explore what happens Online Resources when they mix different colors of light. They use Available at curiosityplace.com flashlights with color filters to project colors of light onto y Equipment Video: Optics with Light & Color a screen. Then, they observe the result when they mix different combinations of the three primary colors of y Skill and Practice Sheets light: red, green, and blue. They apply what they learned y Whiteboard Resources to human vision and how we perceive color. Finally, y Animation: Additive Color Model they use diffraction glasses to observe light from the y Science Content Video: RGB Color Model flashlights. This allows them to see that white light is made of all of the colors of light. y Student Reading: Vision and Color Learning Goals Vocabulary additive color model – a process that creates color by ✔ Use flashlights to mix primary colors of light and show adding proportions of red, green, and blue light together that white light can be made from red, green, and color – a property of visible light that is related to its blue light. wavelength ✔ Compare sources of light. cone cells – photoreceptors on the surface of the retina ✔ Explain how humans see color. that respond to color diffraction grating – an optical device consisting of an assembly of parallel narrow slits or grooves that interfere GETTING STARTED with incident radiation to disperse light waves, and can result in spectra Time 50 minutes photoreceptors – light-sensitive cells on the surface of Setup and Materials the retina of the eye pixel – the smallest element in a display or image 1. Make copies of investigation sheets for students. rod cells – photoreceptor cells in the retina of the eye 2. Watch the equipment video. that respond to differences in brightness 3. Review all safety procedures with students. visible light – the light you can see in the range between Materials for each group 400 and 700 nanometers white light – light containing an equal mix of all colors y Optics with Light & Color kit NGSS Connection This investigation builds conceptual understanding and skills for the following performance expectation. HS-PS4-3. Evaluate the claims, evidence, and reasoning behind the idea that electromagnetic radiation can be described either by a wave model or a particle model, and that for some situations one model is more useful than the other. Science and Engineering Practices Disciplinary Core Ideas Crosscutting Concepts Engaging in Argument from Evidence PS4.A: Wave Properties Systems and System Models PS4.B: Electromagnetic Radiation Optics with Light and Color 51 ADDITIVE COLOR MODEL AND VISION BACKGROUND The human eye also contains another type of light- sensing cell called a rod cell. Rod cells sense the overall intensity of light and therefore see in black and white. Every time humans see something, light is involved. Like They do not see color. Because they can respond to all heat and sound, light is a form of energy. Light comes colors, rod cells are much more sensitive, and can detect to our eyes in two ways: directly from a light-producing lower levels of light, than cone cells. This is why colors object, like a star, or reflected from objects that do not seem washed out in the dark. The lower the overall level produce their own light, like the paper page of a book. of light, the more the eye sees only black and white When we see things in good light, we usually perceive a images. There are about 130 million rod cells and only color. The sky tends to be blue in the middle of the day, about 7 million cone cells. This means the sharpness in or it might have reds and oranges in the evening. A fire our vision comes mostly from our perception of black alarm is usually red; things like walls and shirts may be and white. The color associated with each triplet of any color including black and white. three cone cells is associated with the brightness seen White light is a combination of all the colors of visible by 60–100 rod cells. Essentially, the image that you see is light. A dispersive element like a prism or a diffraction assembled in your brain from 130 million black and white grating interferes with light in a way that can separate dots and 7 million colored dots. out the colors to show that white light is in fact made In this investigation, students discover what happens up of many colors. Simply speaking, these dispersive when different colors of light are mixed. We focus on the elements use refraction or diffraction to bend or change additive color model because we are generally talking the path of light. Light and other waves of different about emitted light and transmitted light. By combining wavelengths respond differently to these conditions, colors of light, we are adding light energies together and essentially causing them to be separated out. If you have therefore sending more light to our eyes in the areas seen light spectra from prisms or spectrometers, you are that perceive those colors. We use the color filters in this seeing refracted or diffracted light, respectively. investigation create the three primary colors of light: red, Since light is energy, different colors are simply lights green and blue. We can then combine light from two or of different energies. Color is how humans perceive more flashlights to demonstrate the additive model. the energy of light. When we talk about colors of light, Televisions and computer monitors make red, green, we talk about wavelength. The double-slit experiment and blue (RGB) light directly (graphic below). Use a conducted by Thomas Young (1773-1829) at the magnifying glass to look closely at a white area on a TV beginning of the 19th century is the earliest published screen or computer monitor and you will see that what experiment using diffraction gratings to show that light appears white is actually tiny red, green, and blue dots. must be made up of waves, and further, that different The dots are called pixels and each pixel gives off its colors have different wavelengths and frequencies. own light. The pixels are separated by very thin black All the colors of visible light can be created using lines. The black lines help give intensity to the colors and combinations of three primary colors: red, blue, and help make the dark colors appear darker. From far away, green. While we could use other colors of light, we you cannot see the individual pixels. Instead, you see a generally use red, blue and green because we have nice, smooth color picture. By turning on the different photoreceptors in the eye called cone cells that are color pixels at different “tuned” to these three colors. We use the letters from the intensities, TV sets can mix colors, RGB, to describe this model of color creation and the three primary colors perception. While most of us think that color is inherent to get millions of different in all objects, an object’s color is really just a way we colors. For example, a perceive light of different energies or wavelengths that light brown color could be are reflected or transmitted to our eyes. displayed by illuminating 88 percent of the red, 85 percent of the green, and 70 percent of the blue pixels. 52 B2 5E LESSON PLAN Engage Elaborate Turn out the lights and turn on a flashlight with no color Making Colored Shadows Using Additive Color Mixing filter. Ask the students what they see. [White light.] If they don’t describe the light, ask them to. Next, have them all When an object is placed in the path of light, it is made put on diffraction grating glasses and look at the light visible if you are able to view it from the side of the light. again. Ask them once again to describe what they see. Ask But light also casts a shadow directly behind the object. them what they think happened to the light. In making shadows, the object in the path of light is called the occluding object. When there is more than one When they put on the glasses, they should see an array of source of light, multiple shadows can form. The regions dashes of color in red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. This where some light gets by blocked are called penumbra. demonstration will prepare them for understanding the The region where no light shines is called the umbra. idea that the rainbow of colors came from the white light. Demonstrate this using the following procedure: Light A Explore Penumbra Have students complete Investigation B2, Additive Color B Model and Vision. In this investigation, students view light Umbra sources in three primary colors. They see how mixing colors in different combinations creates new colors of Penumbra light. They discuss different sources of light that we use A every day, and learn how we see the light and images Light B all around us. Students will learn how we might see the 1. Connect the three flashlight holders in a line using the same color created by two different methods. Finally, slots and rails, arranging all three holders side by side. they see how filters work to create color. 2. Position the flashlights in the holders with the blue light in the middle on the laminated grid. Align the Explain flashlights with their ends aligned with the edge of Revisit the Key Question to give students an opportunity the grid.