Advent calendar 2016 Inspire article

Welcome to the Science in School Advent calendar, packed with inspiring teaching ideas for Christmas, winter and the end of term.

Join us on Facebook where we will be sharing festive activities every day leading up to Christmas. Our topic for today: colour. 

• The most common source of colour is pigmentation, but there is another way to make colour – one that fruits, beetles, butterflies and peacocks all use: structural colour. 
• We often take colour for granted – but what does the world look like if you are colour blind? 
• Use your smartphone to investigate the chemistry of colour. 
• Why not make the science of colour relevant to your students’ lives with some simple hands-on activities with tattoo inks? 
• Colour to dye for? What do we know about the risks of colouring our hair, and why do we do it? 
• Making pH-sensitive inks from fruits and vegetables is a creative variation of the cabbage-indicator experiment. Or you could use red cabbage indicator to investigate the action of the enzyme urease. 
• ​Explore how the ancient Egyptians created dyes from plants and even snails, then have a go at creating indigo in the lab. 
• X-ray analysis and chemistry are helping art historians understand why Van Gogh’s paintings are turning a nasty brown. 
• Are you planning a New Year fireworks display? Use this dramatic demonstration to investigate where the different colours come from. You could even get your students to investigate how fireworks affect air quality. 
• If you still have a few brightly coloured autumn leaves around, why not investigate the different plant pigments they contain? 
• Or use the wrappers from your festive sweets to investigate how we see colours.