Colour-blind Women (LS-ES-268)
Avoiding gender inequalities it is key to develop 21st-century competences among our students; Especially personal and social responsibility, critical thinking and creativity. These three competences are the foundations of this Learning Scenario. I wanted to highlight the role of women and also raise awareness on colour-blindness, a special condition, not very common (8% of men and 0.5% of women), and therefore something most of our students are not familiar with.
The title of the Learning Scenario is a play of words, in this activity, we will learn about women, about colour-blindness and we will even get to colour women as if we were colour-blind (therefore the title of Colour-blind Women).
Discovering more about women in History
Selected images from the Europeana Colouring Book about Women in History showing illustrations of women from the past till modern era (Mayan, romanticism, the industrial revolution, etc.) are used in this activity, allowing the teacher to develop the artistic competences of our students through the creation of several works of art.
Firstly, we teach our students the differences in colour perception between normal vision and colour-blinded. It is quite useful to take advantage of info available on the internet or even to use apps that allow seeing a picture the way a colour-blinded perceives it.
Secondly, the students paint the image with the colours they want and they add special symbols (the ColourADD code) which enables colour-blinded to perceive the true colours used. Later they have to paint the same picture using only the colours that can be perceived by colour-blinded.
Balancing inequalities
Through this hands-on activity, we help the students to fully understand what it means to be colour-blind and how their daily life is affected by this special need, fostering in our students’ critical thinking, raising awareness of the need to balance inequalities and how while all people are different we all can understand each other.
Finally, I want to thank Europeana for this great resource (the Europeana Colouring Book) and I hope your students will enjoy this activity!
Would you like to read the whole learning scenario? You can download it below:
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The featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on the Europeana blog and belongs to the public domain.