LEARN OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL: FUN SCIENCE ACTIVITIES

Science activities and experiments are a fun, family-friendly way to learn about the world around us and even inside of our own bodies.

You can do a lot of different experiments at home with things you already have around the house, and in the process, you can learn about chemistry, physics, earth science, and biology.

Whether you’re interested in outer space or just want to know how ice cream is made, science is all around us, and it’s easy to learn about it at home in lots of different ways.

At-Home Science Activities and Experiments

• Make Ice Cream in a Bag: Learn about how salt changes the freezing point of water while you make a tasty treat!
• Carbon Sugar Snake: Heat can make exciting chemical reactions happen. This experiment uses sugar and baking soda to produce a big reaction.
• How to Make Your Own Eggshell Chalk: Chalk is a chemical compound that leaves a visible residue, and you can actually make your own using eggshells.
• Telling Time With the Sun: The Human Sundial: The sun’s regular movement across the sky casts shadows that change throughout the day, so you can use your body, a driveway or sidewalk, and a piece of chalk to create your own sundial.
• Leaf Transpiration: Plants release water through their leaves, and you can see this in action with an easy experiment.
• Don’t Be Nervous: Bill Nye the Science Guy offers this experiment that you can try to experience how your brain filters out information to help you focus.
• Learn How to Make a Volcano: Mixing baking soda and vinegar can have explosive results!
• Cleaning Coins Experiment: Try different acidic liquids to see which can clean the tarnish off of old coins the best.
• Tornado in a Bottle: Learn about centripetal force by creating a tornado using water and an empty bottle.
• What Do Sugary Drinks Do to Your Teeth?: Teeth have large amounts of calcium, much like eggshells do. Experiment with eggshells and different sugary drinks to see what these drinks can do to your teeth.
• Can You Stand on a Paper Cup Without Breaking It? Standing on one cup can easily crush it, but if you distribute the force of your weight, paper cups can hold you.
• Build a Bridge Out of Pencils: Try this engineering challenge to create a bridge out of pencils and see how much weight it can hold.

Virtual Science Tours

• Tour a Wind Turbine: Wind turbines can produce renewable energy, but people don’t often get to take a close look at them and how they work.
• National Museum of Natural History: Take a narrated video tour to learn about the origins of humans and visit other exciting displays virtually.
• Space Center Houston Astronaut Gallery: Check out some of the spacesuits used by famous astronauts and the stories behind them on this page.
• The National Museum of Computing: Take this three-dimensional virtual tour to learn more about the history of computing.
• The National History Museum in London: You may not be able to fly to London, but you can take a virtual walk through the National History Museum and explore exhibits on all sorts of animals, past and present.
• Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences Dinosaur Gallery: Take a virtual tour of exhibits featuring dinosaur fossils.
• Alice in Typhoidland at the History of Science Museum: Explore this exhibit in Oxford, England, from your home to learn about a harmful bacterium and how we learned to keep people from getting sick.

Online Science Games

• Elinor’s Nature Adventure: Learn about animals in the forest while exploring with Elinor.
• Animal Idol: Test your knowledge of different animals and where they live with this game.
• Science and the Five Senses: Play this game to learn about your senses and what they do.
• Solar System Simulator: Change the settings to see how big, fast, and far from the sun our planet is compared to the other planets in our solar system.
• Science Word Search: Identify science words from a grid in this word hunt for kids.
• Food Chain Game: Learn about how all of Earth’s animals and plants depend on each other for survival.

General Science Resources

• Endeavour’s Long Journey: Watch and listen as a real astronaut inside the International Space Station reads a story about space travel.
• Monarch Butterflies Are in Trouble: Learn how you can help butterflies in your own yard.
• Climate and Weather: Read this page to find out about the difference between weather and climate and why our climate is important.
• The Science of Bubbles: Find out about the science behind soap bubbles in this video.
• Human Body Facts: Did you know that the tiniest bone in your body is in your ear?
• Climate Change: What is climate change, and why should we be worried about it?