What’s Happening in the Color Booth?

November 10, 2016

At the Museum, we honor and celebrate children’s individuality and creativity in the opportunities we provide for them, but also by including their voices in what we do – whether that be the quotes on the hoops hanging from the ceiling in Creativity Connections or the art on display in the Good Show! Gallery. In the spirit of election season we decided to once again honor the voice of our visitors and hold an election of our own.

For those of you that are familiar with the Museum you are probably also familiar with our Color Booth exhibit. We will soon be adding art work to the Color Booth to enhance the exhibit and gave children the opportunity to vote for which piece they liked best. The Hospitality Room, right next to visitor services, was transformed into a private voting booth for the day and children had the opportunity to feel like they too were contributing to something bigger than themselves.

Color Booth is an exhibit that we get a lot of questions about. There is something very alluring about the soft glow of colorful lights that draws you in and makes you want to know more about what is happening. At first glance it appears that it is merely a set of buttons that one can press to change the colors of the lights and observe how the lights effect the objects in the booth.

In actuality it is much more complex and so I enlisted the help of our graphic designer, Nancy Abbott, to assist in explaining the science behind the Color Booth – There is a lot of science in the way that we see color. Our Color Booth exhibit demonstrates many concepts. If you view an object in the booth under what appears to be white light, you are actually viewing the object at the intersection of where red, green, and blue light come together. CLICK HERE for a color addition interactive.

The Color Booth allows visitors to interact with objects and paintings while experimenting with adding a colored light to the equation to see what happens.wing the object at the intersection of where red, green, and blue light come together. CLICK HERE for a lighting interactive.

The color of the objects that we see is largely due to the way those objects interact with light and ultimately reflect or transmit it to our eyes.

Want to know more? Check out these interactive websites that allow you to play with these concepts and deepen your understanding:

http://munsell.com/color-blog/teaching-colors-to-children

http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/light/Lesson-2/Light-Absorption,-Reflection,-and-Transmission

http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/light/Lesson-2/Color-Addition

http://www.physicsclassroom.com/Class/light/u12l2e.cfm