Guided Inquiry Activity:

The goal of this activity is for students to have an understanding of how secondary colors can be made by mixing primary colors.

- Teacher starts by reviewing (from a previous lesson) the primary colors (red, blue, yellow), explaining what makes them the primary colors (all other colors can be made from them).

- Teacher poses the questions to be considered during the activity: How do you think other colors are made from the primary colors? What colors do you think you can make, using just the primary colors?

- Students are given: cups containing colored water – red, blue, and yellow; empty cups to mix these colors in.

- Students work with a partner to determine all of the different (secondary) colors that can be made by mixing primary colors.

- Class discusses the activity: How did you make other colors from the primary colors? What colors could you make? What happened when you mixed the primary colors ______ and ______ ? If secondary colors are the colors made by mixing primary colors – how many secondary colors are there? (3 – orange, purple, and green) What are the secondary colors? Students may suggest other colors (depending on how much of each primary color is used in the mixing), for this activity, explain that there will be only three secondary colors (one from each possible combination of 2 primary colors)

- Students (individually) make a color wheel to show the primary and secondary colors – arranging the colors according to what they found out from the colored water experiment.