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Rockets Away
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In this activity, learners build a simple "rocket" with ordinary household materials to demonstrate the basic principles behind rocketry and the principle of reaction.

Kites
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In this engineering/design activity, learners make a kite, fly it, and then work to improve the design. Learners explore how their kite design variations affect flight.

Jem's Pykrete Challenge
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In this activity, learners make pykrete by freezing a mixture of water and a material like cotton wool, grass, hair, shredded paper, wood chips, or sawdust.

Launch Altitude Tracker
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In this activity, learners construct hand-held altitude trackers. The device is a sighting tube with a marked water level that permits measurement of the inclination of the tube.

Mega Bounce
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In this outdoor activity (on page 2 of the PDF under GPS: Baseball Activity), learners will investigate the transfer of energy using sports equipment.

Pollution Patrol
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In this activity, learners explore how engineers design devices that can detect the presence of pollutants in the air.

Design and Build a Wind Vane
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In this activity, learners design and build a simple wind vane —one of the oldest kinds of weather tools— and use it to show wind direction.

Handheld Water Bottle Rocket & Launcher
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In this activity, learners build handheld rockets and launchers out of PVC pipes and plastic bottles. Use this activity to demonstrate acceleration, air pressure, and Newton's Laws of Motion.

DIY Weather Vane
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In this activity, learners will engineer their own weather vane. This activity includes step-by-step instructions with pictures and a "What's Happening?" section explaining how the activity worked.

Pop Rockets
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Learners place water and part of an antacid tablet in a film canister. The reaction creates a gas reaction that launches the film canister like a rocket.
Magnus Glider
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A design challenge that takes paper airplanes into an entirely different direction: a magnus glider uses cups and and rubber bands to create a glider that uses the same forces that a curveball (from b

Control a Bird’s Flight
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In this engineering design challenge, learners make a bird and then control its flight with attached strings.

Sound Mixer: A Multi-track Mixer of Animal Sounds
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This is a virtual representation of a sound mixer containing pre-looped sounds of animal, insect, and environmental noises.

Solar Water Heater
Learners work in teams to design and build solar water heating devices that mimic those used in residences to capture energy in the form of solar radiation and convert it to thermal energy.

Finding the Size of the Sun and Moon
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In this activity, learners build a simple pinhole viewer. They use this apparatus to project images from a variety of light sources, including a candle, the Sun, and the Moon.

Stomp Rocket
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In this activity, learners build rockets and shoot them into the air by stomping on the plastic bottle launchers.

Parachuting Pinwheel
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Build a pinwheel that works without wind! This activity contains steps on how to build a parachuting pinwheel out of paper, a film canister, and some brads.

Rocket Pinwheel
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This is an activity about motion, power, air and Newton’s Third Law of Motion, which states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Polarized Sunglasses
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In this activity, learners explore how polarizing sunglasses can help diminish road glare.

Bring it into Focus
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In this activity (page 2 of PDF), learners play with a lens and a piece of paper to focus an image on the paper. Learners look at different things, and see how the lenses affect the image.