It’s #MinecraftMonday and also Pride month so why not combine them. You can check out our Pride Month Celebration posts that cover food, art, historical figures, and lots of resources to help with your lessons. I want to add you can do a rainbow lesson at any point whether you are taking about Rainbows in itself or meanings behind that for Pride or Religious reasons. That is what is beautiful about homeschooling, when, how and where you do your lessons is at your discretion.
With that advice, we are going to talk about the science of rainbows.
Rainbows are formed when light from the sun is scattered by water droplets (e.g. raindrops or fog) through a process called refraction. Refraction occurs when the light from the sun changes direction when passing through a medium denser than air, such as a raindrop. Once the refracted light enters the raindrop, it is reflected off the back and then refracted again as it exits and travels to our eyes.
How does refraction result in a rainbow’s colours?
Sunlight is made of many different wavelengths, or colours, that travel at different speeds when passing through a medium. This causes the white light to split into different colours. Longer wavelengths appear as red and shorter wavelengths appear as blue or violet. We see the colour spectrum of the rainbow as the light passes through the raindrop at different angles of approximately two degrees, from red to violet. This is not a true spectrum as the colours mix and blur throughout the spectacle. The angle of scatter from raindrops is different for everyone which means that every rainbow is unique to the observer.
However, for the observer to see a rainbow, they must be in a specific position relative to the sun and water droplets –
- The observer must be positioned so the sun is behind them.
- The lower the sun in the sky, the more of an arc of a rainbow the observer will see
- Water droplets such as rain or fog must be in front of the observer.
Other Meanings of Rainbows
– Hope
– Promise
– Good Luck
– New Beginnings
– Equality
– Communication
– Peace
Everyone has their own connection to the rainbow but it is not exclusive to one religion. It is mesmerizing and beautiful and makes us all feel good in our individual ways.
Above we found some cool rainbow mods for Minecraft, while you can’t do your own experiments within Minecraft, you can build. So here is my challenge to you:
– try building a rainbow out of order of colors. Does that look right? Feel right?
– what does each color mean to you?
– why do you think rainbows are universal in hope?
– build a double rainbow
– now build a triple rainbow
– research myths or legends surrounding rainbows
We hope you have fun with your Minecraft lesson.