The Magician's Catapult

The National Chemistry Olympiad exams are comprehensive tests covering an entire  year of chemistry concepts. You can use them as practice for competing in the challenge, or simply as a review, or as an actual final exam for your...

Can't build a cantilever? You'll be able to after a hands-on, constructive activity. Young engineers build cantilevers out of straws and tape. The finished products must be able to hang off a table as far as possible.

Studying levers couldn't be more exciting! Learners build their own catapults and test the results as they make adjustments to the fulcrum. They compete against other groups to create the most accurate apparatus.

Ready, aim, fire! Launch to a new level of understanding as scholars build and test their own catapults. Learners explore lever design and how adjusting the fulcrum changes the outcome. 

Bridge the gaps in your knowledge of bridges. Individuals learn about bridge types by building models. The activity introduces beam bridges, arch bridges, truss bridges, and suspension bridges.

Collaborative earth science groups create a working model of a watershed. Once it has been developed, you come along and introduce a change in land use, impacting the quality of water throughout their watershed. Model making is an...

Nature has the ultimate recycling program — the Carbon Cycle! How do fossil fuels fit into this program? Pupils answer this question as they observe how all this added carbon serves to unbalance the cycle. Using the perspective of "new"...

In pairs, learners build a piezoelectric generator from readily available electric components in the second and final installment of the two-part series. Tapping the piezoelectric element produces enough electricity to light an LED....

Isn't building with blocks an activity for toddlers? The third lab of a five-part unit teaches young computer scientists how to create their own block instructions for programming. They use these blocks to create geometric figures, spell...

Forget your local meteorologist — build your own barometer and keep track of the weather with an activity that provides directions to build a barometer out of a narrow necked bottle, a glass, and some water. Using their barometer,...