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Water Body Salinities I
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In this activity, learners investigate the different salinity levels of oceans, rivers and estuaries.
Exploring Tools: Special Microscopes
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In this activity, learners use a flexible magnet as a model for a scanning probe microscope (SPM). They learn that SPMs are an example of a special tool that scientists use to work on the nanoscale.
Kinetic Sculpture: Program the Pico Cricket to Make Your Art Light Up or Spin
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Use a Pico Cricket (micro-controller) to animate your art! You can program a Pico Cricket to make your art spin, light up, or make music.
The Electric Squeeze
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In this activity/demo about piezoelectricity, learners discover how some crystals produce electricity when squeezed.
Cup Speaker
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Make your own speaker with a magnet, wire, and paper cup! If you have a radio with a headphone plug and an old pair of headphones, this is a great tinkering activity.
Smart Domino Tricks
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In this activity, you take regular dominoes, and turn them into conductive switches that can turn on a LEGO RCX block or Pico Cricket (micro controller). LEGO RCX block or Pico Cricket is required.
Electrolysis
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Learners observe two joined glass tubes containing a conductive salt solution. Electrodes are passing an electric current through the water.
Musical Sculpting Machine: Squeeze Play-Doh to Make Music
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Play-Doh is conductive! Use the semiconductive qualities of Play-Doh to make your own squeezable instrument. Pico Cricket is required.
Power To Go
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Learners observe an electrochemical cell constructed from a small jar containing zinc and copper strips immersed in separate solutions. The strips are connected to a motor that turns a small fan.
Fruit Xylophone: Fruit Salad Instrument of the Future!
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This is a perfect summertime lunch activity! Pico Cricket is required (micro controller). First, get a bunch of cut up fruit, line them up, then plug a piece of fruit with a Pico Cricket sensor clip.
Interactive Pencil Drawings: Drawings That Tell a Story!
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Margaret Pezalla-Granlund, a Minnesota artist, came up with this really fun and surprising activity using graphite from a pencil, connected with a Pico Cricket to tell a story: "The first time I saw s
Forms of Carbon
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In this activity, educators can demonstrate how the nanoscale arrangement of atoms dramatically impacts a material’s macroscale behavior.
Exploring Materials: Ferrofluid
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In this activity, learners discover that a material can act differently when it's nanometer-sized.
Biobarcodes: Antibodies and Nanosensors
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In this activity/demo, learners investigate biobarcodes, a nanomedical technology that allows for massively parallel testing that can assist with disease diagnosis.
Build a Battery
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Learners build a simple one-cell battery and use an ammeter to measure the flow of current.
Social Fireflies: Pico "Firefly" Communication
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Make two firefly lanterns, then program them to blink to one another and change colors.
Harvesting Chemicals from a Battery
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In this activity, learners take apart a used zinc-carbon dry cell battery.
Electrolysis
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Using electrolysis, learners produce hydrogen gas and oxygen gas from water molecules in a solution.
Currently Working
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Learners test solutions of water, sugar, salt, and hydrochloric acid for electrical conductivity. They immerse leads from a lighting device (a battery pack connected to an LED) into each solution.
Exploring the Universe: Static Electricity
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This activity encourages visitors to build an electroscope—a simplified version of one of the tools scientists use to study the invisible forces on Earth and in space.