At the age of 10, Greg Monk went to the eye doctor for his first pair of glasses. The doctor asked him to look through a book of pictures. “Tell me what numbers you see hidden in the colors,” the doctor said. But Greg could see almost none of the numbers. He didn’t just need glasses. He was color blind.

Five years later, a friend told Greg that swimming pool chlorine turned her blonde hair green. Greg didn’t understand. To him, her hair had always looked neon green! In fact, he knew lots of people whose hair looked green. Greg told his friend how he saw her hair. She was mortified. Before that day, Greg never knew people didn’t have naturally green hair!

Can you imagine how your life would change if you saw colors differently from everyone around you? What would it be like to put together a puzzle? How would a sunset look? Many color blind people can’t tell when a traffic light turns yellow or red. Sometimes they don’t notice sunburn on themselves. They can even have trouble telling when meat is cooked through.

Kids with color blindness sometimes have a hard time with brightly colored games like Candyland or Twister. Color blindness even changes the jobs someone can do. Color blind people usually cannot become airplane pilots, graphic designers, or pharmacists. For all those things, color-sight is a must!

One out of every 12 men and one out of every 320 women in the world is color blind. Do you know any of them?