Since this week is National Wildflower Week, we’re spending the week looking at the plant world! National Wildflower Week takes place each year during the first full week of May, when wildflowers across the country are in full bloom. This week-long celebration was started by the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas. The Center uses native plants to restore and create sustainable, beautiful landscapes. Its mission is to inspire the conservation of native plants through gardens, research, education, consulting and outreach programs. In this blog post, we will learn more about the importance of wildflowers and try out a fun activity using some that we discover while exploring outside!

In honor of National Wildflower Week, this week’s Distance Learning offerings are focusing on the plant world.

Plants use their roots to absorb nutrients from the soil in which they are growing. The process of nutrient cycling captures elements such as nitrogen from the atmosphere, converts them into a usable form for plant nutrition, and returns those elements back to the atmosphere when the plant dies and decomposes. Learn more about the “how” and “why” of nutrient cycling here!

Since this week is National Wildflower Week, we’re spending the week looking at the plant world. First a quick look at the evolution of plants.

Biologists believe that plants evolved from algae between 400 and 500 million years ago. The first plants were bryophytes that did not have vascular tissue- that means that they didn’t have special systems for moving water and nutrients from one part of the plant to another- instead these things moved by osmosis.

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

We need to give our fish enough weight so that it will sink more into the water of its tank, but not so much that it’s stuck on the bottom. Help your pet fish while learning about neutral buoyancy in this hands-on STEM challenge!

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

Our oceans provide food, fun, beautiful views- and they’re also a huge part of climate and weather conditions as ocean currents move both water and energy from place to place. Exploring the weather is a topic for another week, but today we’ll look at the factors that help create and direct currents.

Join one of our museum educators as she reads Uncovering Earth’s Secrets: Science and Adventure on the JOIDES Resolution, by Kevin Kurtz, with illustrations by Alice Feagan!

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!

In today’s Distance Learning Module, we explored the idea of microgravity and learned that scientists simulate this environment on Earth to help astronauts train for spacewalks. Follow up to the lesson with this all-ages activity, in which we create a “weightless” freefall with water. (Best performed outdoors—this will be messy!)

This week’s Distance Learning theme is aquatics. For today’s lesson, we’re making connections between deep sea and deep space by exploring the “how” and “why” of underwater astronaut training. Let’s “dive in” and get started!

Dreaming of summer trips to the beach? This week we’re exploring different aspects of aquatic systems. In this STEM module, we will learn about the life cycle of a frog and try out some fun activities to test out what we learned!

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.

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.

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.

Today, we continue our Vacation Week theme of “deserted island” with a story about navigation and wayfinding. Join one of our museum educators as she reads the Scholastic children’s book The Big Dipper by Franklyn M. Branley, with illustrations by Molly Coxe!

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!

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.