Activities Which Can be Done

1. Collect colorful plants and rocks from wetlands regions. Try drawing or painting with these natural materials. Mix colors to see what happens.

2. Paint pictures of wetland regions with one color only.

3. Cut color from magazines. (Example: Green from grass, trees, or bottles) Make a wetlands collage with the colors.

4. View a wetland area through various colors of plastic.

5. Place water in a glass container. Put the container on the overhead projector. Add food coloring. Collect water from a wetland region. Place it in a glass container and also put it on the overhead projector. Talk about the colors seen in the water.

6. Spin a top to see how colors blend. Make a top out of materials from a wetland region. Spin the top and look at the colors which blend together.

7. Make a spinning color wheel. Place two holes through a round circle. Put string through the holes. Whirl the color wheel with the string. Cut a round piece of wood from the end of a branch which has grown in a wetland region. Make a whirling wheel from it. Note the natural colors.

8. Place a prism in light and enjoy the colors. Look at the ways light is reflected and refracted in and on water in a wetland region.

9. Make a kaleidoscope. Cut shapes which might be seen in a wetland region. Place these tiny shapes in the kaleidoscope.

10. Have a color fair. Have one booth for each color. Have people provide experiences for all of the five senses which relate to the color for their booth and the theme of wetlands.

11. Play a game to see which team can find the most variations of one color in a wetland region.

12. Look at sun coming through the leaves and branches of trees. Note color changes in places where the sun is shining directly or indirectly on objects.

13. Place some oil on water. Note the iridescent colors.

14. Look at the colors on a soap bubble or bubbles in the water in a wetland.

15. Look at pictures of rainbows or view real ones when they are available. Note how colors in a rainbow are somewhat like those near them.

16. Turn on a hose and adjust the nozzle so that it produces a very fine spray. Hold it in the sunlight. Observe the rainbow which forms. Look for rainbows in pictures of waterfalls.

17. Show colors. Talk about what colors symbolize or mean to various people. Note how people of various groups or cultures appreciate different colors. Think about colors used by artistic people who live in or near wetlands or like to paint wetland pictures.

18. Sort markers or crayons by color. Find objects in a wetland region. Sort them by color.

19. Make color charts. Play a game in which you try to find these colors in a wetland or pictures of wetlands.

20. List all of the different names which can be found for a particular color group. Artists, business people, gardeners, and others develop specialized names for colors. Are there colors which show the influence of nature? (Sky blue, ultramarine blue, forest green, yellow ochre, violet, etc.)

How could these same ideas be applied to another thematic unit?