Science of Color (High school, full year)

I have always been interested in areas where science and art overlap. Colors are a fascinating part of our universe where we see the interplay between objective, external reality and our shared by subjective experiences. This is a high school level class with labs. We start with history of human understanding of light, vision, and color, then move into the physics of photons and the electromagnetic spectrum. Then we discuss color chemistry -- what are pigments and how do they work? We end the first semester with hands-on paint-making workshops using earth and organic pigments.

In the spring we move towards subjective color experiences. Starting with evolution and biology of eyes and color vision, we look at how color works among plants and animals. Then we move into human color vision, metameres, color illusions, linguistics, color theory models, and how different industries and cultures use color.