Oil Pastel Hand

As a class we read All the Colors We Are: The Story of how We Get Our Skin Color. The students learned that their skin color comes from the sun, our ancesters and melanin. The more active melanin is in our system, the darker our skin. The less active, the lighter our skin. Using a brown oil pastel (A color made with all three primary colors - tertiary color), the students tried to match their own skin color by making the brown lighter with white and darker with black. The students also looked to see if their skin had more, red, yellow or blue in their brown color. After blending oil pastels to match their skin, they traced their hand and blended the new color inside there outline of their hand.