the magic of color

The rainbow is an incredible thing to behold, especially for children. Observing its 7 bands of colors in the sky makes you wonder how it forms and what causes its fantastic colors. With this experiment you will know the answers to these questions by creating a rainbow in the comfort of your home.

To create your rainbow, you will need the following materials:

✔ Glass of water
✔ Mirror
✔ Dark room
✔ Lantern

Process

Place the glass of water on a table and then place the mirror inside it at an angle. Make sure the room is completely dark. Close all the curtains and blinds so there is total darkness. Take the flashlight and direct the light towards the mirror that you placed inside the glass. Notice how a rainbow appears at the angle of your mirror. Adjust the angle of the mirror as you like!

Discussion

You just made your own rainbow, but do you know what explains your creation? A rainbow is an optical phenomenon that appears as a band of colors in an arc, and is the result of the refraction of the sun’s rays by rain. When the sun shines on water droplets in the atmosphere, a rainbow is formed.

The rainbow shows the colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet in that order. Its formation can also be caused by other things, such as fog and dew.