Science and Mathematics Initiative for Learning Enhancement (SMILE)
Smile: Lab Activity: Tops
The Illinois Institute of Technology provides a lab activity on precession and spinning tops. Designed for primary grades, but easily adapted for any level. Includes directions and assessment ideas.
Science Museum of Minnesota
Science Museum of Minnesota: Tops
In this lesson make a spinning top to explore the concepts of shape, color, spinning, and optical illusions.
Children's Discovery Museum
Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose: Color Blending Top
Put a new spin on blending colors by creating your own spinning top. Mix colors through motion and make this optical illusion spring to life.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Investigating Movement of Tops
Students will raise questions about the way tops move by observing, through exploration/inquiry time, what they are made of, how the shape of each top affects its movement and what surface is best for a top to spin longest. As they...
Center of Science and Industry
Cosi Columbus: Bottle "Tops"
Learn about rotation and balance in this hands-on science experiment. Includes full list of materials, procedures, and scientific explanation of how wobbling affects the "spin time" of an object due to it being unbalanced.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Mechanics Mania
Through ten lessons and numerous activities, students explore the natural universal rules engineers and physicists use to understand how things move and stay still. Together, these rules are called "mechanics." The study of mechanics is...