Light & Color

Teacher Resources

Essentials of Light for Educators

Review essential background on light energy at How Light Works. 

Is light a particle or a wave? Why does light behave the way it does? Get answers to questions about light that can be shared with students. 

Optics for Kids offers good background information on light basics, refraction, reflection, and scattering. 

From Florida State University, Light and Color reviews fundamentals of electromagnetic radiation, visible light, lasers, and prisms.

PBS LearningMedia

Bringing the Universe to America’s Classroom: Light is a comprehensive resource containing videos, lesson plans, and interactives on all aspects of light waves. Resources are organized for grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. 

From Dragonfly TV, Light and Color challenges students to come up with colorful art displays without using paints. Mixing, bouncing, and bending light leads to imaginative and creative results. A class activity with teacher’s guide accompanies the video.

PBS NC Science has a series of concise video lessons on various aspects of light:

A series of video segments from Shedding Light on Science includes:

In connection with a teaching unit on light, PBS Parents has some great ideas for at-home extension activities you may want to share with parents. 

In Light: DIY Science Time, join the Science Crew as they explore the properties of light and demonstrate simple activities you can do in the classroom.

Science educators consider how to conceptualize and describe light to students in brief professional development videos What is Light? and Light Demonstrations.

Lesson Plans and Teaching Activities

Teach Engineering provides several hands-on lesson plans for introducing students to the electromagnetic spectrum, visible light, light behaviors, light and matter, and how light travels.

For grades 4-5:

For middle school:

See the Light, from the American Museum of Natural History, includes activities where students observe how light reflects, refracts, and disperses into different colors.

Jello Optics teaches properties of light including reflection, refraction, dispersion, absorption, and transmission. Additional Edible Optics and Laser Jello lessons are provided by the Exploratorium and Stanford.

From the Exploratorium, Exploring Light offers a wealth of classroom activities that bring concepts of light and color to life.

Take a look at these STEM lesson plans and experiments for grades 1-3 and grades 4-8. You’ll find lessons on all aspects of visible light and how light behaves under different conditions.

Light Reflection for Kids for grades 3-5 includes text selections with a read-aloud option and activity guide.

Optics4Kids provides educators with classroom activities to increase students’ understanding of the physics of light as they manipulate color and light. The optical illusions page is fun to share with students as well.

These hands-on Light Energy Activities for elementary classrooms provide opportunities for observation and discovery.

Utah Education Network offers complete lesson plans to help students explore and describe the properties of light. Take a look at I See The Light and Bending Beams of Light.

Science in Focus: Light is a series of teacher workshops for educators, including a workshop on the Laws of Light, that contains teaching ideas and classroom demonstrations for introducing concepts to students.

The Physics Classroom: Light and Color has a lesson plan and light & color interactives for middle school students.

Take a look at these K-12 lessons, worksheets, and resources on light and the light spectrum.

The natural corollary to teaching about visible light is a study of vision. You will find teaching suggestions at Science Trek’s Eyes site. The University of Washington offers a lesson on color vision that includes a class experiment, teacher’s guide, and student guide. A slide presentation may also be useful.

Arizona State University has teaching materials about the light spectrum, how we see color, and the colors that animals see.

More Classroom Resources

Scholastic’s Study Jam videos are a fun way for students to review and internalize concepts. Take a look at Light, followed by Light Absorption, Reflection, and Refraction. Online quizzes accompany each video.

NASA has infographics and explanations of the electromagnetic spectrum and visible light.

Helpful websites where students can learn more about light include:

Science Kids’ Light for Kids page includes videos, projects, experiments, and games.

Light Energy Videos for Kids is a collection of brief videos for elementary classrooms.

Light For Kids offers an easy-to-understand video summarizing light concepts for kids. 

Light, Color, and Seeing from the Exploratorium offers a wealth of content to supplement your light unit.

Light and Shadows from Science Zone includes interactives and quizzes.

Optics For Kids explains the science and engineering of optics, including lenses and lasers.