What do we need to make a rainbow?

Let’s investigate!

“Sun, rain, and maybe with a torch?”
Did you know that you can split the light using a CD?

We tried this using a CD and a torch .

“I see all the colour, it’s a success!!”
“I love science experiments”

We discovered that bright white light is made up of different colours of light all mixed together.We tried to think of things with all the colours of the rainbow for our experiment……We could use:

  “the wee sweet bright things you can eat?”

“Oh look the colours all mixing up”

“That’s going brown”

“It’s really making a rainbow”

This experiment didn’t quite work out!   We thought using water and sun we would somehow create a rainbow?  Maybe try a holding up a glass of water in a sunny place until you see a rainbow on the floor next time?   However we did discover you need light to see your reflection!  We also noticed our shadows on the ground when it was really sunny, then when it clouded over they disappeared.   Sometimes scientists repeat experiments and get different results depending on  lots of factors like the environment or method.  (During our experiment a fly flew into the water………..which may spark another type of investigation!)

Try these experiments at home to see if you get the same results!  Next generation of scientists!