How Fast Is that Rocket?

Revisit the 2012 Summer Olympics by having seventh graders calculate the unit rate sprinting speed of the 100-meter gold medal winner. 

How long is 30 seconds? Scholars compete to determine who can most accurately predict how long 30 seconds lasts and then compare accuracy among groups. They collect and sort data, determine the central tendencies, and divide the data...

How loud was that? Individuals build wheels displaying different sounds. Then, learners use the wheels to find the number of decibels the sound creates and how long they could withstand the sound before potential hearing damage.

How can you launch an object that isn't propelled by air? The resource provides directions to build a launcher to launch rockets made of two-liter bottles. The launcher, built mainly from materials found at the local hardware store, uses...

Enough talk about the Greenhouse Effect—let's actually look at it! Junior climatologists engage in a simple thermodynamics experiment on a cold winter's day to examine global warming. The activity simulates rising carbon dioxide levels...

How do rockets fly? Teams design, build, and launch a rocket made from a two-liter bottle to explore forces on a rocket such as Newton's Laws of Motion.  During the design phase, young engineers draw a diagram of their rocket and include...

Aspiring astronomers study stars. They compare stars and explain the relationship between radius, mass, and diameter. By creating a star simulation, they discover how a binary star system's orbit can cause changes in the observed...

Did you know that when you are sitting in your easy chair, you may be moving up to 1000 miles per hour depending on what part of the planet you are sitting on? Consider relative speed by watching this moving video. Boggle brains in your...

How safe is the drinking water you have access to? Colors, smells, and other factors may lead you to finding out if your water is safe. Watch a video that explains the ways water becomes filtered and ways to know when water is contaminated.

A flood of information about tsunamis can be learned by viewing this feature. How do they get started? How fast do they travel? How high can they rise? The answers to these questions, plus a little bit of history, are given for your...