We learned how light can be either reflected, refracted or absorbed. In the refraction discussion, I told the Students that natural visible sunlight was called white light and that this white light contained all the visible spectrum of colours (ROYGBIV). The Students were not sold. They retorted with a good source that when we colour all the colours together on a paper it turns black, not white. I agreed that this was how ink colours work, but light behaves differently, so we experimented.
I hope to bring a prism in to show them a real rainbow of colours as white light is refracted, but for now we did it with a paper experiment. We split a circle of paper into eight segments and coloured each segment a different colour of the rainbow spectrum. Then we mounted them on cardboard and spun them around very fast to see how the colours would mix when our eyes tried to follow the wheel.
Our first experiment was with dark marker colours.
As you can see, the colours were too dark and we kept getting a yellow, or in one case purple, wheel.
Next we tried pencil crayons. We figured the colours of a rainbow were not that dark, and more lighter colours.
The result of our next trial was much better: a white wheel. The colours mixed together and made white, proving that white light really can contain all the colours and still be white.
In addition: One Student made a wonderful connection to the behaviours of light and us, the Jewish people. Just like light can be Reflected and Absorbed, so too can Torah work the same way. As we know, Torah is called Ohr (Light) and this too is the name of the Alter Rebbe's sefer: Torah Ohr. We, as Jews, can absorb the teachings of the Torah to give us more knowledge and change our kiddos for the better. As well, we can reflect the light of the Torah outward to the world making kiddushei Hashem, performing mitzvos and doing mivtzoim. These are just some of the reasons we feel Torah is called light.
No comments:
Post a Comment