Activity
Hands-on experiments, debates, data dives, and diagramming and design exercises put students at the center of their learning.
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Earth
Geologist for a day
Rocks found across the world offer clues to geological processes, as well as the history of Earth and the rest of the solar system. In this activity, students will review types of rocks and the rock cycle and will apply that knowledge to interpret data on two rock samples.
- Health & Medicine
Collaborating to stop an epidemic
Students will imagine that they are officers at the World Health Organization and will work in groups to develop action plans to prevent the spread of a new virus, such as coronavirus.
- Physics
Protective headgear design challenge
Concussions are a common sports injury. After reviewing Newton’s laws of motion, force diagrams, momentum, and elastic and inelastic collisions, students will test various materials that might protect the head from sports collisions and use those materials to design protective headgear.
- Genetics
Cats and Punnett squares
Scientists would like to breed cats that don’t trigger allergies in people. By constructing and analyzing a Punnett square for two low-allergen cats, students will review key concepts including patterns and probabilities of inheritance, genotype, phenotype, genes, alleles, chromosomes and mutations.
- Physics
Seeing in infrared
In this activity, students will analyze infrared images and then explore how infrared imaging is used across a range of fields of work. Skills include researching, evaluating, synthesizing and presenting information.
- Physics
A world of acoustics
Students will use decibel meters to understand how the volume of a sound changes as it travels away from a source. Concepts covered include sound waves, the inverse square law, absorption and reflection. The activity also asks students to consider how the characteristics of a space affect the sound.
- Humans
What’s that smell?
Students will explore how our sense of smell helps us interpret the world around us, and how those interpretations may vary. Students will practice analyzing data and determine how temperature affects vapor pressure and thus the intensity of scents.
- Planetary Science
Lunar orbit
Students will practice analyzing and graphing data about the moon’s orbit. The activity will help students understand the Earth-moon system and the nature of elliptical orbits.
- Life
Stories in rock
In this activity, students will research important fossil sites across the world and synthesize what they find into a story to present to the class.
- Earth
Unbalancing the carbon cycle
This activity covers where carbon is stored in the Earth, how carbon moves through Earth’s various spheres and how humans are impacting that carbon flow.
- Science & Society
Collaborate with an SN 10 Scientist
With inspiration from the SN 10 scientists, students will explore how their own interests combined with collaboration with a partner can lead to a specific science research question.
- Tech
Digital circuit design
Students will practice designing an integrated circuit that can accomplish a simple task. The activity will help students understand that digital circuits are composed of logic gates made up of transistors.
