Introduction
Approximately 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women in the world experience some form of color blindness or color vision deficiency. For the vast majority, color blindness is due to genetics and most likely inherited from the mother. Some diseases, such as diabetes and multiple sclerosis, or by aging will acquire color blindness. In other words, it can happen to anyone.
I have decided to focus on color blindness for this webquest because I am dating a man with a fairly severe color blindness disability. He comes from a family of males that all have some degree of color blindness. I frequently forget that he is color blind and ask him his opinions on certain things that he cannot see normally. I have made this webquest in order to learn more about how he sees.
http://www.colourblindawareness.org/colour-blindness/
Task
Follow the links, read about color blindness, and reflect on what you have read.
Process
What is color blindness and what are the different types?
This webquest will teach you about the condition of color blindness and the different types of color blindness and deficiency. There are different types and the severity of each changes. You will see what color deficient people see.
Why is color blindness prevalent?
We will learn why color blindness occurs. Color blindness affects mostly males but it also affects females. We will explore this in this webquest.
What can color blind people do to overcome this disability?
Color deficient people will find they have difficulties with certain tasks and things that a person without color deficiency would do fine with. There are ways a color deficient person can overcome this disability.
Are you color blind? How does the world look to someone who is color deficient?
We will explore and test the color deficiency of the participants in this webquest. You can test if you are color blind or deficient and see what a person who is color blind or deficient sees.
http://colorvisiontesting.com/home.html
Evaluation
What is color blindness and what are the different types?
The human eye sees by light stimulating the retina. In the retina, there are rods and cones. Rods allow for night vision but does not decipher color. The cones in our retinas are not good with night vision but allow us to see color during daylight. Color blindness is genetic because the coding for our cones can be wrong. If this happens, the instructions for the cones being wrong will produce the wrong pigments. They do not see colors as a person with the correct instructions for the cones in their retinas would. It is increasingly rare to be completely colorblind, called monochromasy or the complete absence of any color sensation. The other types are protanomaly, deuteranomaly, and dichromasy which can be divided into two types: protanopia and deuteranopia.
http://www.colorvisiontesting.com/color2.htm
Why is color blindness prevalent?
Most forms of color blindness or color deficiency are due to genetics. This website has a good diagram of the genetics and how color blindness can pass through generations. The most common form of genetic color deficiency is red-green. This is due to the “sex-linked X chromosomes”. Men are more likely to be color blind or deficient because they carry one x chromosomes whereas women have two. If the gene for color blindness or deficiency in on the one male x chromosome, the person will be color blind or deficient. The gene can be on only one of the female x chromosomes and the person will not experience color blindness. This website explains the genetics in detail about color blindness.
http://www.colorvisiontesting.com/color3.htm
What can color blind people do to overcome this disability?
This video by Valspar tells the story of people who are experiencing different degrees of color blindness and deficiency. They explain their special project where they have created special glasses for those who are color blind or deficient who can see colors with these glasses. They can now see the colors of their children’s drawings, the paint on the wall, and the scenery of where they live. It gives them the ability to see things they have never seen before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea_xOqNvntA
Are you color blind? How does the world look to someone who is color deficient?
This website shows different tests to see if you are color blind or color deficient. These may look familiar to you if you have visited an eye doctor. These are the tests where the dots in the pictures are different colors and if you can see the objects or numbers, you are not color blind or deficient. Try if yourself!
http://www.colorvisiontesting.com/online%20test.htm
This website is very interesting because you can upload your own image and see what it would look like to a color blind/deficient person. I uploaded several pictures and was very surprised to see how different they would see the same picture.
http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck/vischeckImage.php
This is a good representation of how color blindness/deficiency can affect those people in their everyday life. As a person who can see colors correctly, I did not realize how much color blindness can affect the everyday tasks and activities. Scroll through the slideshow and see for yourself how color blind/deficient people see things.
Conclusion
After going on this webquest, you should be more aware of the disadvantages those with color blindness or deficiencies have. This is a good website to end the webquest with because it shows more “shocking” images of how people with this disability see every day.
I am more educated now on color blindness and will be more understanding with my boyfriend who is red-green color deficient. I have asked him if he thinks some chicken I was cooking was done. He responded with a “Am I really the person you should be asking?” I immediately realized my error. His degree of color blindness is not debilitating and we have just adapted with it. I am in charge of checking when meats are done being cooked or picking out colors of clothing that look good together. We make it work.
http://www.colorvisiontesting.com/what%20colorblind%20people%20see.htm
Thanks for following my webquest! Hope you learned something!