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🌈 Light & Color

Discover how light travels, splits into a rainbow, and lets you see color.

2
lessons
~15 min
to learn
🔬 Science
subject
Ages 6–12
level
Start the course →

What you’ll learn

  1. Describe what light is and how it travels, reflects, and bends.Light is energy that travels in fast, straight rays and lets us see. It can be blocked to make shadows, bounce off surfaces as reflection, and bend when passing between materials as refraction. Light is the fastest thing in the universe.
  2. Explain how white light splits into colors and how we perceive color.White light contains all colors, which a prism can split into the spectrum ROYGBIV, the same way raindrops make rainbows. We see an object's color because it reflects that color of light. Screens mix red, green, and blue light to make every color.

Questions this course answers

How does light usually travel?

Light travels in straight lines called rays until something blocks or bends it.

What is it called when light bounces off a mirror?

When light bounces off a smooth surface like a mirror, it is called reflection, which is how you see yourself.

Why does a straw in a glass of water look bent?

Light bends, or refracts, when it moves between water and air, making the straw look broken or bent.

What did Isaac Newton's prism prove about white light?

In 1666 Newton passed white light through a prism and saw it split into all the rainbow colors, proving white light contains them all.

What does ROYGBIV help you remember?

ROYGBIV stands for red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, the order of colors in a rainbow.

Why does a red apple look red?

The apple absorbs most colors of light but reflects red light back to your eyes, so you see it as red.

Grounded in trusted sources

  • National Geographic, "Rainbow" (education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/rainbow)
  • Ducksters, "Physics for Kids: Light Spectrum" (ducksters.com/science/light_spectrum.php)
  • Science Learning Hub, "Colours of light" (sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/47-colours-of-light)
  • Britannica Kids, "Light" (kids.britannica.com)
  • NASA Science, "Visible Light" (science.nasa.gov)

Every Wunder lesson is built from real, reputable sources — never invented.

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