Tehtävä
Tehtävän nimi
Colours!!
Oppitunnin tavoite
 Language:
o learn the colours
o double vowels in Dutch
o learn to express expectations from on experiment
 Chemistry:
o Learn the process of chromatography
o Learn the difference between hydrophilic and hydrophobic
 Biology
o What is the colour of a leaf
o What does a plant need to grow
Mitä tarvitaan?
1. A story about colours
2. Tree or plant leafs, filter paper, alcohol, glass jars
3. m&m’s and markers (different colours), filter paper, glass jars
4. beans, glass jars, household paper
5. milk, plates, food colours, soap and cotton swabs
Oppitunnin kulku
1. Why do trees turn yellow in the autumn?
This is a story that tells about a man that travels to the north and discovers that trees can
have different colours. He tells about this in this home country, but everybody laughs at
him. Than in years he comes back as a bird with an autumn twig, and drops it. Since
that day all trees change colour too in that country.
 I used the story to learn the different colours that were used in the story. The
children had to write all the colours they heard in the story, when it was read, and
colour them into the right colour
 In Dutch there are many double vowels that a pronounced as one sound, we tried
to find these in the story, and gave all sounds a colour (that would correspond
with the sound) and they had to colour all these in the text
(see ppt why do trees turn yellow in autumn)
2. The true colours of a leaf
All children could choose a leave of a plant (you can also do this with trees). We were
going to see which colours are hidden inside a tree leave. You can do this with green or
yellow leaves. We go the best results with dandelion and spinach leaves.
(see ppt true colours of a leaf )
3. Primary colours and mixing
 First all children got a sheet were the first put the primary colours (red, yellow,
blue) and then mixed them in the next ring, and had to tell which colour they got
then. (the best is to do this with paint, it also works with crayons which we did)
 Than the children all got an m&m, and they could try to see which was the real
colour of the m&m. They first had to dissolve the colour in some water, and put
this on a filter paper, put the paper in water and wait. The primary colours do not
split, but the other colours do spilt into different colours. All children had a work-
sheet in which they had to fill there expectations based on their colour mixing
experiment. (worksheet M&M)
 The same can be done with coloured markers.
(ppt primary colours and mixing)
4. Bean experiment
 Colours and light are linked together. We discussed this in the group ( you can also do some experiments with this concept if you want to include more physics in
the project, we skipped this because of lack of time)
 One thing plants need to grow is light; this is also what makes them green. We
discussed what other things plants need to grow, and came up with, warmth,
food, water and CO2. Because some things are a bit harder to test than other, we
decided to test, water, light and warmth. All children got two glass jars, in which
they put some household paper, beans and water. Than they choose a treatment
they wanted to test.
o Water vs. no water
o Light vs. dark
o Inside vs outside (warm vs cold)
All children took their beans home for one week and scored what happened
(first roots, first sprout, first leaves etc.) The next week they brought their
beans back to the class and we compared them and discussed what happened
and why. The same lesson when we put up the experiment, we also dissected
one bean, and looked what was inside, and discovered that the small plant is
already waiting inside with two packages of food next to it. We also discussed
the whole life cycle of the bean plant (worksheet bean)
(ppt. bean experiment)
5.Colouring with milk
 In this experiment we put whole fat milk in a plate, and add a few drops of food
colour (different colours) to it. Than you put a cotton swap in dish soap, and tap
the milk with the swap. Look what happens!! It is because soap is bipolar. So
one side of soap loves water (hydrophilic) and the other end fears water (hydrophobic) but loves fat. So the water loving part dissolves in the water, and the water fearing parts binds with the fat in the milk, this makes the colours move
through the milk.
(ppt. colouring with milk and see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sszCZLTTDFU, worksheet colouring with
milk)
Kesto
The whole project took 4x 2 hours, but you can shorten it if you do less experiments, of
make it longer with more experiments. The first lesson (2h) we did the story and the
true colours of the leaf. The second lesson (2h) we tested the m&m colours and the
marker colours and discussed about the primary colours. The third lesson (2h) we set up
the bean experiment. The fourth lesson (2h) we discussed the outcomes of the bean experiment and did the milk colour experiment.
In all lessons we watched a short (15min) educative movie (in Dutch from SchoolTV:
www.schooltv.nl) about the subject (leaf colours, chromatography, growth of plants
etc.). We did a language exercise and we did an experiment.
Odotetut oppimistulokset
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They learn all the different colours
Learn the different double vowels by sound and pronunciation
Know what is a primary colour
Know what is chromatography and how does it work to separate colours
Know what is the difference between hydrophobic and hydrophilic
Learn how to set up a small experiment, describe expectation and results, and try
to explain the results