Lesson 15 Arts · Colour & Materials · Cultural Identity

The Colours of Where I Live

Your place has a palette. Can you find it? Not a metaphor - a real, measurable set of colours that comes from the rock under the town, what grows there, how the light falls, what people could afford to build with, and what somebody once decided was beautiful. Find it, name it, then see somebody else's.

🕐 45 min total
📋 7 activities
🙋 Individual pathway · one class palette
🏅 DigComp badge
5
Phases
7
Activities
45m
Duration
1
Class palette, built by everyone
DigComp competences
1.1 - Browsing and filtering 2.1 - Interacting through digital tech 2.2 - Sharing through digital tech 3.1 - Developing digital content 4.2 - Protecting personal data and privacy Badge: Place, Colour & Cultural Identity L1
Lesson overview
This is Activity pack 3 of 3 in the Art theme - it completes the set with Lesson 2, "Art, Expression & Human History" (pack 1) and Lesson 14, "Who Made This?" (pack 2). Pack 1 teaches how to look at one work. Pack 2 teaches how to ask where an image came from. Pack 3 turns both outwards onto your own street.

Every task here is done alone - but the outputs assemble into one collective class artefact, which is the toolbox's answer to a "reinforced collaborative component" request without a single group task. You open by picking your own place out of three colour palettes with no picture attached, and most classes get it right. You learn the five reasons a place ends up with the colours it has: what's underneath, what grows, the light, what people could get cheaply, and what somebody decided. You collect ten colours, patterns and textures from your own surroundings - from yesterday's photographs, the window, this room, what you're wearing - and give each one a real name, not just "blue". Then your five best colours combine, live, with everyone else's into one class palette, which you help name.

You receive a real palette made by students your age in another country and work out what's shared and what's unique - and why. You make something using only your class palette, because the limit is the point. The lesson ends with a second window count to measure your own attention, a five-question test, the same three self-ratings you gave at the start, and the Place, Colour & Cultural Identity - Level 1 DigComp badge.
Your learning journey - 7 activities across 5 phases
🔮
Phase 1
Anticipation - Can you find your own place in colour alone?
1 activity
🪨
Phase 2
Encounter - The five reasons a place has the colours it has
1 activity
🔍
Phase 3
Investigation - Collect the evidence, then build one palette together
2 activities
🌍
Phase 4
Discovery - A palette from another country
1 activity
🖼️
Phase 5
Propagation - Make something in your palette, show what you've learned
2 activities

Your place has a palette. Can you find it?

Start Activity 1 and work through the journey at your own pace. Each activity unlocks the next - so complete them in order.

🏅 Complete all 7 activities to earn the Place, Colour & Cultural Identity - Level 1 DigComp badge

🎨 Start the journey