At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway

At-home STEM Activities: Tides and Moon Phases

Dreaming of summer trips to the beach? This week we’re exploring different aspects of aquatic systems.

Ocean tides are one of the most predictable natural phenomena. One cycle of tides occurs about every 25 hours, and the main cause of the rise and fall of the waves is the gravitational pull of the Moon. Since the Moon is the main reason we have tides, this leads us to the question: Is there a relationship between the phases of the Moon and Earth’s tides?

Investigate this question by analyzing data, graphing your findings, and creating a flip-book of your results!

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At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway

At-Home STEM Activities: Ocean Zones

Dreaming of summer trips to the beach? This week we’re exploring different aspects of aquatic systems.

The oceans can be divided into several zones, both vertically and horizontally. Areas near the coast along the continental shelf are in the neretic zone, while those farther out in the open ocean are in the oceanic zone.

There is only enough light for photosynthesis within the top 200 m of water and does not make it below 1000 m, making for very different communities of sea creatures as you descend into the oceans. While food webs within the euphotic zone can be based upon phytoplankton, in the aphotic zone energy comes from chemical sources and falling material from above.

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At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway

Saturday STEM Challenge: Raft Building

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.

We’ve been stuck on this deserted island all week and have been learning lots of survival skills. We learned how to make a compass, how to use the sun to cook food and make drinkable water, how to use our senses to get a better idea of our surroundings, and how to use the stars for navigation. But now, we’ve had enough of island living and we want to get back home. To get off this island, we’ll need to build a raft.

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At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway

At-Home STEM Activities: DIY Sextant

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-

Maybe at this point, despite how much fun it might be on a deserted island, you’ve decided you want to go back home again. Whether that’s in a boat that has miraculously appeared (or you decide to accept this week’s Saturday STEM Challenge) or because you’ve finally figured out how the Professor on Gilligan’s Island made a radio out of coconuts and now you can broadcast a message asking for help, you need to know where you are before you can get home.

There are two pieces of information you need to determine that: your longitude and your latitude.

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At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway

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!

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At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway

At-Home STEM Activities: Your 5 Senses and the Wilderness

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- how could we problem-solve our way through being stranded and get back home again?

The week has been rainy, but that didn’t stop us for going outside and getting in touch with nature! This activity is great for getting outside and active during the stay-at-home orders across the country, without breaking any rules! For this activity you will need a notebook and a pencil to jot down all of your findings on your nature walk. (If you do not live near nature trails, try going for a walk around your neighborhood, or in a local park.) Bring along a camera if you want to take photos of your finding. If you parents have a camera phone, see if they can take it along for your nature walk.

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At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway

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.

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At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway

At-home STEM Activities: DIY Compass (We're going on a 'vacation' adventure...)

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- how could we problem-solve our way through being stranded and get back home again?

We’ll start by making a compass from materials we (hopefully) have lying around so that we can find north and the other cardinal directions- this is a pretty quick activity that touches on our magnetic field and the Earth’s core.

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At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway

At-home STEM Activities: Tangrams

Tangrams are a geometric puzzle that have been entertaining people for centuries. A set of tangrams is comprised of seven shapes: 2 large right triangles, 1 medium right triangle, 2 small right triangles, a square, and a parallelogram. In a tangram puzzle, you want to use all 7 shapes to form the given picture. This can be tricky since there are billions of ways to arrange the shapes, but you’re trying to find the one that makes the right shape.

As you work with tangrams, you’re growing in your analytical skills, your spatial awareness, and your understanding in how shapes can be manipulated. Let’s make our own set of tangrams and working on our problem solving abilities!

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Follow-Up to #Hubble30: Additional Resources

Thanks to everyone who joined us for our very first Facebook Live event, in celebration of the Hubble Space Telescope’s 30th birthday! Faithe and Sarah had a blast presenting on live video feed about the history and significance of the Hubble Space Telescope. (Hubble launched from the Kennedy Space Center on the shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990.)

In this post, we share additional Hubble resources, to keep the learning coming all weekend. In particular, there are plenty of opportunities to dive deeper into the Cosmic Reef—which we are able to visit via the special Hubble image “Tapestry of Blazing Starbirth” that was publicly revealed for the first time on April 24, 2020.

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At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway

At Home for Earth Day: Make Your Own Paper with a Recycled Egg Carton

Reduce REUSE Recycle!

In honor of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, this project will practice reusing! The DIY activity uses old egg cartons and repurposes them in a fun and interactive way. Use your paper creation and decorate it however you like. There is no limits to your creativity with this project! Follow the steps below to create your own paper from home. (This project takes a little over a day to do because the paper needs to dry.)

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At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway

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.

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At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway

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!

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At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway

At-Home STEM Activities: Fun with Vibrations

Have you ever turned the music up so loud that you can feel it? The floor seems to hum, and you can feel the vibrations in the walls and other objects in the room. How can music travel from a speakers and cause such powerful vibrations in other objects? In this activity you will make a model of your eardrum, and watch how sounds can make it vibrate! You will explore how sound creates vibrations and how that will affect small objects, from as little as a humming sound, to as loud of playing music through a speaker.

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At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway At-Home STEM Activity Michael Conway

At-home STEM Activities: Washable Sidewalk Chalk Paint

As we move into warmer and sunnier spring days, outdoor activities in our yards and driveways become an option while we are all social distancing. One classic outside activity is drawing with sidewalk chalk. Playing with chalk is a great way to get creative, and we can add an extra educational element by creating out own chalk paint! With younger learners, you can use the process of making the paint to explore color mixing, division, and ratios.

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