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Electrical Fleas
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In this activity about electricity, learners explore how static electricity can make electric "fleas" jump up and down. Learners use a piece of wool cloth or fur to charge a sheet of acrylic plastic.
Spinning Blackboard
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Create beautiful spirals by drawing a straight line. This sounds crazy, but you can with a turntable (a record player or lazy susan), paper, and pen.
Non-Round Rollers
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Wheels aren't the only things that can "roll" objects that are placed on top of it. Make non-intuitive shapes from cutouts and a compass to demonstrate this.
Paper Bridges
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In this activity, learners build bridges using paper and explore how much weight each bridge design can support.
Straws and Pins
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In this activity, learners build bridges and cantilevers in a series of "building out" challenges with straws and pins.
Balancing Ball: Suspend a ball in a stream of air
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Balance a ball in the air with a hair dryer! This Exploratorium produced activity shows learners concepts like lift and air streams. You can try many different angles, speeds, and ball types.
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.
Falling Rhythm
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Listen to the beat of gravity. By taking two strings with weights tied to them at different, yet uniform intervals, you can hear the uniformity (and rhythm) of gravity's accelerating pull.
Garden Poles
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In this activity, learners build large-scale structures and cantilevers in a series of "building out" challenges with garden poles and tape.
Coupled Resonant Pendulums 2
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Create a simple dual pendulum and get them to swing in identical ways. This is a simple, low cost, activity produced by the Exploratorium.
Vortex
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In this activity, learners create a tornado in a bottle to observe a spiraling, funnel-shaped vortex. A simple connector device allows water to drain from a 2-liter bottle into a second bottle.
Wind Tubes
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In this activity, learners create and experiment with wind tubes. These tubes are a playful and inventive way to explore the effect that moving air has on objects.
Spinning Cylinder: Make a triangle appear on a spinning wheel
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Spin a short piece of PVC pipe that's been marked up, and watch a triangle appear. Enjoy this optical illusion from the Exploratorium's Science Snack series.
Vector Toy
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Walk a toy to the edge of its doom, maybe it'll fall off the edge of a table, but it will safely stop right before falling.
Hoopster: An Airplane Made from Paper Hoops
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This activity provides instructions for making an aircraft that can really fly using a straw and paper hoops!
Remote Control Roller: Experiment with Static Electricity
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This activity is an investigation of static electricity. What happens when you get "static cling?" Basically, you pile up electrons on one thing, which attracts the protons in something else.
Momentum Machine: Speed up your spin
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Spin in an office chair holding milk jugs! Plus, learn physics. Very fun (but stay safe) activity from the Exploratorium Science Snacks series.
Center of Gravity
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A simple, yet fun activity that lets learners find the center of balance of a ruler (or any long thin object). Developed by the Exploratorium and no assembly needed.
Newspaper Bridges
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In this activity, learners build bridges out of newspaper and tape to explore how structures are designed to bear loads.
Skewers and Garden Poles
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In this activity, learners build scaled-down structures and cantilevers in a series of "building out" challenges with bamboo skewers and tape.