At-home STEM Activities: Science of Animation and DIY Zoetrope
Since the turn of the twentieth century, audiences have been amazed by the technical and artistic marvel that is motion pictures. The very first movies were live-action, but it wasn’t long until artists started bringing their drawings to life in animated shorts and films.
Let’s learn about why we see animation, how computer science plays a big part in some of your favorite movies, and how to make our own Victorian animation device, a zoetrope!
At-home STEM Activities: Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion and DIY Gravity Well
We’re spending this week looking at planets! Today, we’ll learn a little about the development of models of the solar system and Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion, and then we’ll simulate how planets move around the Sun by making our own gravity well.
At-Home STEM Activities: DIY Solar Still
For New Hampshire’s April school vacation week, when none of us is actually going anywhere, we decided to focus on things we could do if we did have some sort of wild vacation adventure and ended up on a deserted island.
On Tuesday, we learned how to use the sun’s energy to cook our lunch. Today, we’ll see how we can use to sun to make water drinkable. Note that since we aren’t actually on a deserted island surrounded be sea water, we need to make our own for this activity. Use of a stove is needed to boil water—please use adult supervision for this!
At-Home Stem Activities: Make a Solar Oven
For New Hampshire’s April school vacation week, when none of us is actually going anywhere, we decided to focus on things we could do if we did have some sort of wild vacation adventure and ended up on a deserted island.
Today, we’ll cook lunch on our “island” locale by constructing a simple solar-powered oven. With no more fuel needs than the power of the Sun, this activity is as “green” as it is practical! Note: with cutting and heating components, adult supervision for this activity is a MUST.
At Home for Earth Day: Make a Water Filter
Use common materials from your home and yard to make a basic water filter, and watch it work on muddy water!
Filtration is the process of separating solids from fluids using a a filter—a medium that only the fluid can pass through, leaving the solids “trapped” behind. Natural and human-made filters are all around us: paper filters keep coffee grounds out of freshly brewed coffee; HEPA filters capture dust particles in our vacuum cleaners; our kidneys even act as filters to remove harmful materials from our blood! In nature, dirt is naturally filtered out of water as the water moves through sand, soil, gravel. This is the process that we will be demonstrating today.
At Home for Earth Day: Model the Earth's Layers
Use modeling clay to create a simple model of the Earth’s layered structure!
At Home for Earth Day: Plastic Bottle Terrarium
A terrarium is an enclosed environment created for plants, which needs very little outside intervention once it is set up. In celebration of Earth Day, let’s create a basic terrarium from an upcycled 2-liter plastic bottle. When it is complete, our plant will receive sunlight through the transparent walls of the bottle, and it will obtain water from its own water cycle!
At Home for Earth Day: Rain Cloud Mobile
Upcycle leftover packaging to create this cute all-ages cloud mobile!
At-Home STEM Activities: Make Your Own Sundial
Tell time with nothing more than the sun and a few household objects!
This sunny-day activity is geared toward elementary and middle-school learners: it requires an ability to read time and to find magnetic north with a compass (with or without assistance).
At-Home STEM Activities: Make Your Own Bouncy Ball
Make your own bouncy ball with this easy at-home recipe
A fun all-ages activity, with adult supervision required for younger learners (mess potential!)
At-Home STEM Activities: Domino Computer
Computers work by adding binary numbers using circuits of logic gates. In this module, learn about some of the most common types of logic gates, and model them by building circuits out of dominoes.
This module is geared toward upper-middle and high school students.