Now Announcing: Family Activities Available on Museum Grounds Starting THIS WEEKEND!
Beginning this Friday, June 19, we’re taking the next step in gradually welcoming visitors back to the Discovery Center by providing outdoor hands-on activity stations on our grounds. Learn more here!
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: 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 STEM Activities: Ice Cube Race
Learn how different colors interact with heat in this simple solar-powered activity!
This activity is geared toward elementary-level learners, but can easily scale up or down depending on existing science knowledge. Younger children may appreciate performing the experiment with less emphasis on the background and concluding information, while older students may choose to supplement this lesson with in-depth research on wavelengths and energy.
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: Space Goo with Optional Egg-Drop
Can you make Space Goo strong enough to protect an egg? Find out with this simple at-home activity! Hands-on fun for all ages, with adult supervision (mess potential!)
At-Home STEM Activities: Make a Rain Gauge
Turn April showers into an opportunity for at-home science! In this all-ages activity, learn how to track rainfall using a simple homemade rain gauge.
Adult supervision required—sharp objects utilized in one step.
At-Home STEM Activities: Paper Mountains
Create your own world of mountains and valleys, and watch the effects of a rainstorm!
Appropriate for pre-k and up, with supervision (mess potential!)
Distance Learning Module: Investigating Clouds
Learn how clouds form—and see it in action!—with this at-home science lesson and video demonstration.
