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In this activity, learners create a simple “top” from a CD, marble and bottle cap, and use it as a spinning platform for a variety of illusion-generating patterns.

Did you know that you would be a different age if you lived on Mars? It's true!

Did you know that a Slinky makes a handy model of earthquake waves?

In this activity related to magnetism and electricity, learners discover that a magnet falls more slowly through a metallic tube than it does through a nonmetallic tube.

Construct a simple battery that's able to power a small light or motor out of foil, salt water, and charcoal. A helpful video, produced by the Exploratorium, guides you along on this activity.

If you have access to a copper metal tube, this activity does a great job demonstrating what happens to matter when it's heated or cooled. This activity requires some lab equipment.

In this activity, learners eat a snack and make a model of the plumbing system of a volcano.

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.

In this physics activity, learners recreate Galileo's famous experiment, in which he dropped a heavy weight and a light weight from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa to show that both weights fall

In this activity, learners construct a three-dimensional ambiguous cube to explore visual illusions and how our brains interpret or misinterpret information.

In this optics activity, learners examine how a transparent material such as glass or water can actually reflect light better than any mirror.

In this optics activity, demonstrate diffraction using a candle or a small bright flashlight bulb and a slide made with two pencils.

In this activity, learners make their own heat waves in an aquarium.

In this activity, learners build a tool called an inclinometer that can find the height of any distant object, from a tree to the North Star.

To understand how skaters turn in midair, try this little experiment! Individuals can do this activity alone, but it works better with a partner.

This activity demonstrates liquefaction, the process by which some soils lose their solidity during an earthquake.

It's difficult to see convection currents in any liquid that's undergoing a temperature change, but in this Exploratorium Science Snack, you can see the currents with the help of food coloring.

In this activity about depth perception, learners create an optical illusion in a shoe box.

Make a cuíca (“kwee-ka”), a traditional Brazilian musical instrument that originated in Africa. Played primarily in Brazil, now you can play it at home, too, with this Exploratorium produced activity.

In this activity about light and perception, learners discover how a flash of light can create a lingering image called an "afterimage" on the retina of the eye.