Observe how hot and cold fluids move past on another with this fun and colorful activity!
Blue ice cubes (freeze water and blue food coloring, using big whiskey-sized ice cubes works best)
Red food coloring
Water pitcher
Hot water source
Glass dish for mixing (1 per group)
Learn about solubility by dissolving candy in different solutions! Perfect for a Halloween or Valentine’s Day activity.
This activity was adapted from the American Chemical Society and can be found here.
A Halloween themed worksheet for this activity can be downloaded here.
A fun way to learn about growing plants! Plant seeds in a nylon stocking and watch them grow over several weeks.
This material was adapted from homemade-gifts-made-easy.com , please refer to their website for detailed supply lists and instructions.
An accompanying worksheet made by our team can be found here.
Drop different objects from the same height and see which ones hit the ground first? Do the results match your predictions? What’s different between each object?
Video of David Scott dropping a feather and hammer on the moon
Ping pong balls
Marbles
Pencils
8.5×11 sheets of paper
Craft feathers
Erasers
Paper clips
Learn about the water cycle, hands on! Find out what is needed for a cloud to form, and what makes a cloud rain. These two activities can be broken up into two lessons, or done in the same 1 hour period, depending on your grade level.
We adapted these activities from giftofcuriosity.com, please visit their sit for the full list of supplies and directions:
For additional media to accompany these lessons, we have prepared the two presentations below
A short challenge to get students thinking about how the brain and memory works! You’ll show slides with random objects, and see how many objects the students can remember when the slide is taken away.
Start by showing the students the slide with only 4 objects for 30 seconds as a warm up. Emphasize that they can use any word to remember the objects they want. So for the picture of a couch, the words couch, sofa, chair, seat, or even a drawing of a couch are fine! There’s no right or wrong answer.
I like to re-introduce the scientific method with this activity. Have the students create a hypothesis based on the question: what will happen when the number of images, or the time to memorize, increases? A good hypothesis might be “I predict that I will remember more images when given more time to memorize them”.
As the number of images increases, ask students to converse about their strategies and propose some strategies of your own. Do any students come up with an acronym or a story to help them remember?
At the end of the activity, remind the students that we can improve our memory by training. If fitting for your class, you can also have them calculate percentages, i.e. what percentage of objects did they remember.
Understand how energy moves from one form to another using littleBits! In this activity we will stored energy (batteries), solar energy, and mechanical energy into electricity.
Per group:
Have the students explore the different ways they can turn on different littleBits components. Can they turn on an LED with a battery? How about with a solar panel in the sun? In the dark? How hard to they have to turn a hand crank to get it to power these circuits?
Ask the students about the different types of energy going into these circuits (electrical, solar, mechanical) and the different types coming out (light and mechanical). Can they think of other types of energy conversion in their daily lives?
Why do craters on the moon have different sizes? It has to do with energy!
Teach students the relationship between speed, mass, and energy with this fun and flour-y activity.
In this activity, we’ll drop balls from predetermined heights into a pan of flour. By measuring the size of the created crater, we can estimated how much energy the falling ball had.
Learn about chemical potential energy! Many chemicals store energy, which can be released when mixed. In this activity, we mix chemicals and observe the change in temperature.
This activity is also a good opportunity to emphasize safety and good scientific technique. Mixing chemicals can create unexpected results, so students should only do so under adult supervision. Calcium chloride can be toxic if ingested, so please review the MSDS before using. Mixing these chemicals can cause splashing so safety goggles are recommended.
Learn about the plant life cycle by exploring common fruits for different seeds. Engage students by allowing them to observe fruits with a new perspective.
