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Blast Off!
Source Institutions
Students design and create their own air-powered rockets, in this hands-on activity.
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Boomerang
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Learners trace, cut out and fly a boomerang, outdoors or in a large indoor space.
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Sled Kite
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In this activity, learners build a sled kite that models a type of airfoil called a parawing.
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Helicopter Twirl
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Learners cut and fold a paper helicopter from the template in this PDF. They practice twirling the helicopter and observe what happens as they modify their tries.
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Rocket Reactions
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The "Rocket Reactions" activity is an exciting way to learn about how materials interact, behave, and change.
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Hot Air Balloon
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In this activity, learners build a hot air balloon using just a few sheets of tissue paper and a hair dryer.
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Hand Spin Helicopter
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In this activity, learners build helicopters and launchers using wooden dowels and scrap paper. Use this activity to explore rotational motion and kinetic and potential energy.
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Action Figure
Source Institutions
In this project, students explore how levers work, by making a puppet with moving limbs.
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As Straight as a Pole
Source Institutions
In this engineering activity (page 3 of PDF), young learners investigate how a pole can be made stable by “planting” its base in the ground or adding supports to the base.
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Designing a Wall
Source Institutions
In this engineering activity (page 5 of PDF), young learners investigate how materials and design contribute to the strength of a structure, particularly walls.
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Exploring the Solar System: Stomp Rockets
Source Institutions
In "Exploring the Solar System: Stomp Rockets," participants learn about how some rockets carry science tools—not scientists—into space, and how a special kind of rocket called "sounding rockets" can
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Rocket Pinwheel
Source Institutions
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.
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Supporting Structures
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In this activity about living things and gravity (page 5 of PDF), learners design and build an exoskeleton or an endoskeleton for an animal of their own invention.
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Paper Bridges
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In this activity, learners build bridges using paper and explore how much weight each bridge design can support.
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Straws and Pins
Source Institutions
In this activity, learners build bridges and cantilevers in a series of "building out" challenges with straws and pins.
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Full of Hot Air: Hot Air Balloon Building
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In this activity, learners create a model of a hot air balloon using tissue paper and a hairdryer. Educators can use this activity to introduce learners to density and its role in why things float.
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Clay Bridges
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In this activity, learners make bridges using an oil-based modeling clay (plasticene). The instructions include discussion questions for both before and after bridge building.
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Wind Tube
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In this activity, learners explore moving air and the physics of lift and drag by constructing homemade wind tunnels.
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Nosedive
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This is a great activity for investigating the basics of lift and drag as they pertain to flight. Learners will discover how to avoid "taking a nosedive" by building their own paper airplane.
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Exploring the Universe: Objects in Motion
Source Institutions
"Exploring the Universe: Objects in Motion" encourages participants to explore the complex but predictable ways objects in the universe interact with each other.