The Butterflies in Space Teacher's Guide uses "life in space" to encourage learners to conduct their own open-ended scientific investigations. The guide provides information about the Butterflies in Space experiment conducted aboard the International Space Station and instructions on how to build a habitat and conduct open-ended experiments. The experiment instructions begin on page 11 of the PDF. Learners can build a "Clamshell Habitat" or a "Box Habitat" to raise Painted Lady butterflies.

Students will discover the terminal velocity to mass relationship and use this information to calculate the air resistance constant. They will evaluate the accuracy of their lab using the Monte Carlo method.

Students construct three-dimensional models of water catchment basins using everyday objects to form hills, mountains, valleys and water sources. They experiment to see where rain travels and collects, and survey water pathways to see how they can be altered by natural and human activities. Students discuss how engineers design structures that impact water collection, as well as systems that clean and distribute water.

Here’s an easy way to find the center of gravity of a long, thin object, even if the object’s weight is unevenly distributed.

Concept puzzles are ways to give students practice thinking about geophysical methods and problems. These are used as individual or group in-class activities that can take between 10-45 minutes.
Has minimal/no quantitative component

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This activity describes the construction and use of a pneumatic cannon and free falling target used to teach the concepts of projectile motion in introductory physics.

In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, cast members use a hair dryer to balance a ball in a stream of air, seemingly defying gravity.

In this video segment, the ZOOM cast is challenged to keep a ping pong ball in a funnel while the funnel is held upside down, seemingly defying gravity.

After going over the concept of moment of inertia in class, students are asked to calculate density models of the earth. Three models of increasing complexity are developed, using additional constraints from seismology on the radius of the core. This homework assignment is typically the only assignment for the week - it gives the students practice in applying concepts and methods from physics and mathematics that usually have only been encountered in a theoretical fashion by the students. How we determine mass and moment of inertia are discussed in class. Usually students work together in small groups, as those whose math skills are rusty find this assignment difficult on their own. This activity uses geophysics to solve problems in other fields.

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In this Explore on Your Own activity, students will design a rover to explore the surface of Mars and determine if there are any signs of past life.

After a discussion about what a parachute is and how it works, students create parachutes using different materials that they think will work best. They test their designs, and then contribute to a class discussion (and possible journal writing) to report which paper materials worked best.

Student groups are provided with a generic car base on which to design a device/enclosure to protect an egg on or in the car as it rolls down a ramp at increasing slopes. During this in-depth physics/science/technology activity, student teams design, build and test their creations to meet the design challenge, and are expected to perform basic mathematical calculations using collected data, including a summative cost to benefit ratio.

This activity is an outdoor lab where students gather data and calculate velocity, acceleration, momentum, and force of a vessel they create to safely deliver 2 eggs from the roof to the pavement below.

In this activity, students will learn about and apply the Laws of Physics to successfully launch and land a raw egg. The activity frames the problem around designing and building a bottle rocket that will protect a raw egg being launched into the air at least seven meters. Resources included in this lesson are found at the bottom of this document and include:

-Teacher guide
-Physics note sheets on motion, speed, velocity, acceleration, momentum, force, friction, Newton’s Laws of Motion, potential and kinetic energy and gravity.
-Egg Launch Instructions
-Link to Bottle Rocket Launching Instructions
-Links to videos
-Post Assessment

In this activity, students will learn about and apply the Laws of Physics to successfully launch and land a raw egg. The activity frames the problem around designing and building a bottle rocket that will protect a raw egg being launched into the air at least seven meters. Resources included in this lesson are found at the bottom of this document and include:

-Teacher guide
-Physics note sheets on motion, speed, velocity, acceleration, momentum, force, friction, Newton’s Laws of Motion, potential and kinetic energy and gravity.
-Egg Launch Instructions
-Link to Bottle Rocket Launching Instructions
-Links to videos
-Post Assessment

In this activity, students will learn about and apply the Laws of Physics to successfully launch and land a raw egg. The activity frames the problem around designing and building a bottle rocket that will protect a raw egg being launched into the air at least seven meters. Resources included in this lesson are found at the bottom of this document and include:

-Teacher guide
-Physics note sheets on motion, speed, velocity, acceleration, momentum, force, friction, Newton’s Laws of Motion, potential and kinetic energy and gravity.
-Egg Launch Instructions
-Link to Bottle Rocket Launching Instructions
-Links to videos
-Post Assessment

This is a children's science story about gravity (title translated: The World of Copocuqu: Queen Gravity and King Mass). Learners will read about the force of gravity and how it relates to the mass of a body. The story takes place in an asteroid in which all its inhabitants talk in the form of questions or the world of Copoqucu. The story ends with a magic secret (or learning capsule), which reflects in synopsis the science message that the child would take with him or her.

In this activity, learners conduct a simple experiment to see how electrically charged things like plastic attract electrically neutral things like water. The plastic will attract the surface of the water into a visible bump.

Learn about conservation of energy with a skater dude! Build tracks, ramps and jumps for the skater and view the kinetic energy, potential energy and friction as he moves. You can also take the skater to different planets or even space!

Learn about conservation of energy with a skater dude! Build tracks, ramps and jumps for the skater and view the kinetic energy, potential energy and friction as he moves. You can also take the skater to different planets or even space!