Traveling Science Workshops

How long does a bubble last? What color is a bubble? Can you predict when a bubble will pop? Students challenge what they think they know about bubbles as they make new observations, pose questions, investigate, and discuss their findings.

Virtual workshop is for grades K-2 and supports General Science and Engineering Practices.

Colorful chemical reactions spark creative scientific exploration. Students discover the difference between a physical and chemical reaction while they change and monitor the pH of various household liquids.

Acting as paleontologists, students practice tool identification and usage as they excavate from a mock dig site, unearthing fossils. Comparing the bodies of different dinosaurs and between parent and offspring builds an understanding of differences and similarities, heredity, and variation. Multiple sessions must be held in one room.

Students learn how rock formation and erosion create landforms. By handling and comparing specimens, constructing sedimentation chambers, and growing crystals, students build evidence for how these systems work. Requires direct access to running water. Multiple sessions must be held in one room.

Students practice science and apply math skills as they review basic magnetism and work in teams to build a simple electromagnet, test its strength, and graph the results.

What makes a flying object fly? Student engineers learn about the properties of flight and the multiple forces at play as they fold, blow, and throw flying contraptions of their own design.

Students observe how magnets can be used as a force to make toys move in fun, unique ways. Endless opportunity to observe the effects of balanced and unbalanced forces as they apply what they learn while engineering their own original magnetically powered moving toy. Multiple sessions must be held in one room.

Students explore concepts of force and motion while interacting with a variety of toys and engineering their own toys that move in lots of different ways.  Students play with how to make objects move and control that movement, and experiment with the effects of outside forces such as gravity and friction acting on that movement. Multiple sessions must be held in one room.

Virtual workshop not available for PreK.

Teams of student scientists and engineers work together on a challenge in this fantastical adventure. Together they develop and test possible solutions to an insulation design problem, discovering how design and engineering choices relate to energy conservation. Multiple sessions must be held in one room.

Students discover properties of light and color using flashlights, prisms, and colored acetates. Spinning tops and chromatography experiments engage students in thoughtful dialogue about how colors can be mixed and enhanced.

As students compare white light and lasers, they identify key properties of light. Interacting with flashlights, prisms, lenses, and a variety of materials that block, reflect, or allow light to pass through, sharpens their understanding.

Students engage in a fun chilly exploration, make observations, and ask questions as they investigate the role temperature plays in causing materials to change from solid to liquid or liquid to solid.

Students explore how distance, orientation, size and strength impact the behavior of magnets. They make and take home a magnetic field viewing chamber and receive special magnets to continue their exploration at home.

Students explore the history and technology of the microscope as they use simple water lenses to uncover fascinating properties of light and optics. Hand-held microscopes set the room abuzz as up-close inspection reveals a microscopic universe never-before-seen!

Investigating the physical properties of solids, liquids, and gases has never been so much fun! In this most popular workshop, dry ice and liquid nitrogen make learning the phase changes very dramatic as together we observe a solid change directly to a gas, shatter flowers, and use a banana as a hammer. 

PCM II adds student hands-on exploration stations to the general introductory workshop, PCM I. Multiple workshops must be held in the same room with warm running water accessible. The full participation of the classroom teacher and at least two parent or school volunteers during each workshop is required.

Teams of students work together using levers to experience mechanical advantage. From lifting the teacher with minimum effort to engineering their own levers, they see and feel how a lever helps accomplish work. Multiple workshops must be held in one room.

What makes sound? Students are introduced to the concept of sound as vibration that travels in waves through gas, liquids, and solids. Students play with pitch and resonance as they create and engage with unique sound makers made from common household materials. 

Sound, can you hear it? Is it loud? Is it soft? How is sound made? Preschool students will delight in exploring the world of sound as they make sound toys and learn how to control pitch and volume.

Students explore simple wave models while delving into the science of sound and how it travels. This adaptation of our original Sound workshop specifically supports Grade 4 STE standards for Waves and Their Applications in Technologies for Information Transfer. Multiple sessions must be held in one room.

Snap, crackle, pop are just a few of the sounds created in this hair-raising experience! Students experiment with how to create static electricity with a variety of household materials and are introduced to an extraordinary machine that allows them to safely feel the effects of moving electrons!

Young meteorologists understand the important role weather plays in daily life as they engage in the practice of science and engineering by developing tools for forecasting and observing day-to-day changes and seasonal patterns over time. Multiple sessions must be held in one room.