Students learn about nanotechnology and why it works by looking closely at surface area and its comparison to volume. Hopefully they will begin to understand the incredible possibilities of this science.
What is a quantum dot?
Category: Math and Science
DST ends November 5th – strange happenings
In this activity students try to figure out how time settings will change as they move from place to place and what variables are involved in the daylight savings time shift. Day length? Latitude?
Vampire bats + Mosquito eating bats
Two activities. Vampire bats = We’ve given lots of interesting metric and customary unit facts and asked students to relate those sizes to more familiar objects. + Mosquito eating bats = Students compare a bat’s weight to how much he can consume in one night. They calculate how much they would need to eat to consume a comparable proportion of food.
Nobel Prizes
The Nobel Prizes have just been awarded. Alfred Nobel was a chemist, engineer, inventor, and businessman. He left most of his fortune to endow 5 prizes for “those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind” in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace. How much money is awarded?
Will this be an El Niño winter?
Students study charts that show variations from normal sea surface temperatures during El Niño years. They get the chance to more fully understand these events and understand the world-wide ramifications of an El Niño year.
Huge Alaskan Vegetables
The growing season in Alaska is short, but, farmers are able to grow 75 pound cabbages, 100 pound kales, and 1,000 pound pumpkins. How do they do that? Stnds calculate length of growing seasons and hours of sunlight to approximate how much one of these giants grows per hour. Unbelievable!
Lego Fireman +
Students use our lego measurements to underestimate and over estimate this giant firefighter’s construction time and LEGO block quantity. Then students average their class estimates and compare to the real time and and quantity.
Autumnal Equinox 2023
Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 06:50 UTC (2:50 am EST), will be the Autumnal Equinox. It is the time of year when an imaginary plane would pass through both the Earth’s Equator and the center of the Sun. We have 3 activities to use during this event.
The Moroccan Earthquake and the Richter scale
Friday evening, September 8th, a powerful 6.8 magnitude earthquake hit Morocco southwest of Marrakech.
What does a 6.8 magnitude earthquake mean? How powerful was that? What is a seismometer and a seismograph? What is the amplitude of a seismograph reading? Why did the quake happen in Morocco?
Hurricanes again …
Updated In this updated hurricane activity, we’ve ask students to examine the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale and consider what other elements besides this ranking may contribute to the devastation that is caused by tropical storms. Students read about hurricane classfications…
Monarch’s are flying south again
In mid-August and early September, the Monarch butterflies begin their annual migration south to more moderate climates to hibernate and overwinter. In this activity students read charts, do a little research, and make observations about the decline of Monarchs.
What do you know about the Hawaiian islands?
Let your students explore Hawaii and better understand its depths, heights, and origins as they compare maps and deduce info from charts.
Wildfires and particulate matter
Wildfires in Canada have been spreading dangerous smoke pollution throughout much of North America. What is a dangerous size of particles per cubic meter (PM)? How tiny is that? How do those particles get into your body?
What is heat index?
Is some heat more bearable? What is the heat index measure? How does that affect our risks and our tolerance of heat? How does sweat come into all of this?
The 4th of July
Flag art, creating a 5-pointed star with one cut, fireworks on your calculator, hot dog eating contest, and a possible new, 52-star flag.