White light is a mixture of many different colours, each with a different frequency. White light can be split up into a spectrum of different colours using a prism, or a triangular block of glass or perspex. Light is refracted when it enters a prism, and each colour is refracted by a different amount. As a result, the light leaving the prism is spread out into its different colours, a process called dispersion.

The seven colours of the rainbow (spectrum) are often listed in order of their frequency, from the lowest frequency to the highest frequency: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. What about coloured light? There are three primary colours in light: red, green and blue. Light in these colours can be added together to make the secondary colours magenta, cyan and yellow. All three primary colours added together make white light. Objects appear black in white light because they absorb all colours and reflect none. Objects also appear black in any single colour of light if their colour is not the same as the light.

In this lesson, students will explain how white light is not just a single colour and describe how the colour of a light wave is related to its frequency. In addition, learners will evaluate why coloured filters only let their colours through and coloured objects reflect only that colour and assess why objects seem to change colour in coloured light.

This is a quality, ready-made lesson bundle for the Google Classroom ecosystem, leaving the teacher with little to plan or prepare except printing out what is required for students.

All lessons include the following:

• Lesson road-map: timing recommendations for teachers.
• Starter activity: designed to engage students immediately thereby increasing focus and managing behaviour in the classroom.
• Learning: student-centred, collaborative learning tasks aimed at encouraging self responsibility for learning, developing study skills and learning.
• Application of Learning: a menu of classroom tasks, graded by challenge, based on the learning element of the class. Stretch & Challenge tasks are provided for gifted and talented students as well as a creative writing task with a language framework for students of all abilities.
• Final Plenary: This links back to the lesson objectives and ensures that the teacher is better able to carry out assessment for learning (AFL) and identify general student progress.
• Teacher Resources: classroom content, worksheets and students feedback resources are filed under this section.
• Teacher Notes: Recommendations for teachers in the speaker notes sections of many Google Slides.

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