Ever wonder where the bright, brilliant colors in a rainbow or your favorite crayons come from? Do you think about what colors your pets see and how the world looks different through their eyes? Or even stain your favorite T-shirt with a permanent marker and ask yourself if there was a way to make it look cool?
In 2013, Girl Scouts Western Pennsylvania partnered with a team of PPG professionals to create the PPG Science of Color Patch Series for Girl Scouts to explore the world of color. Thanks to a generous grant from PPG, the program was redesigned in 2023 to make it easier for troop leaders to understand and implement.
The redesign included shipped program kits with facilitator guides and lesson outlines which were made available in August 2023 for troops and individual Girl Scouts. A total of 180 boxes were ordered and distributed, impacting over 1,560 girls throughout western Pennsylvania.
The activities in the PPG Science of Color Activity program kit assist Girl Scouts on their journey of color as they learn chemistry, physics, and general science pertaining to the world of color we all live in—all while working their way toward earning the PPG Science of Color patch. To earn the patch, girls must complete all of the activities included in the box.
One activity included in the program is making color wheel coffee filter flowers! Here’s how you can make these:
MATERIALS:
– 4 coffee filters
– water-based markers in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet (purple)
– 1 small paper plate
– spray bottle filled with water
– glue
– scissors
DIRECTIONS:
Cut 3 of the coffee filters in half so that you have 6 halves. Color each half with two of the water-based marker colors in the following combinations:
RED and ORANGE
RED and PURPLE
BLUE and PURPLE
GREEN and BLUE
YELLOW and GREEN
ORANGE and YELLOW
Using the last coffee filter, color the center using all six colors: RED, ORANGE, YELLOW, GREEN, BLUE, and PURPLE.
Cover a surface (with something like newspaper, paper towels, etc.). Set all the colored coffee filters on the covered surface. Lightly spray them with water until the colors start to spread, then set them aside to dry.
Scrunch the dried coffee filter halves and glue them to the paper plate so that the coffee filters cover the edges of the plate, but not the center. Group together your colors just like the color wheel.
Scrunch the whole coffee filter and glue it to the center of your paper plate. You have created a coffee filter flower!
GSWPA 