In the last portion of the six-part unit, teams perform an experiment with gold nanoparticles to determine which sport drink has the most electrolytes. The nanoparticles are used as chemical sensors and fluoresce in different wavelengths...

Introduce teams to quantum dot solutions with an activity that has them expose solutions to a blacklight, observe the colors, and take measurements. Groups graph the data and analyze the dependence between particle size and...

Break down light into spectra. Scholars learn how atoms emit and absorb photons and come to understand how this process allows scientists to identify different atoms based on either absorption lines or emission lines. Learners then...

How does the color of the sky change from blue to reds and oranges to black? An illuminating lesson explains how light travels through different mediums using the sun's light as an example. By examining diagrams and illustrations, pupils...

Turning white light into colors only takes a little scientific know how! Young scholars create their own spectroscope in a hands-on activity exploring the properties of light. Using a diffraction grating, they discover how white light...

With a little light and a lot of time, you can create some amazing images. This NASA-related task instructs pupils to build a pinhole camera. The lesson provides suggestions for different pictures to try with the pinhole camera...

Things are about to heat up in your classroom! A kinesthetic lesson asks learners to play the part of the gases in the earth's atmosphere and interact with the sun's radiation. The focus is to learn the impact of the increasing...

How many of your pupils play an instrument? A musical science lesson will help all of them understand how string instruments work. Young scientists construct a string-and-pulley system to test frequency and pitch. The lesson...

Make sound waves visible with an experiment that asks middle schoolers to build a model ear drum using plastic bottles, rubber bands, plastic wrap, and sand-like substances.

Investigate a heated topic in environmental science. Scholars team up to play the parts of gas molecules in the atmosphere. As the teacher moves about, acting as the electromagnetic wave, learners react as their molecules would to the...

Watch augmented reality bring classrooms to life. Scholars work in groups to design, build, and market a new pair of headphones meant for children under three. They use an augmented reality app to show their headphones in action as they...

Investigate the wavelength properties of visible light and the scattering effects of the earth's atmosphere on different wavelengths.

Students are introduced to the physical concept of the colors of rainbows as light energy in the form of waves with distinct wavelengths, but in a different manner than traditional kaleidoscopes. Looking at different quantum dot...

Music and sound are two different concepts that share much in common. Determining the difference between the two can sometimes be difficult due to the subjective nature of deciding what is or is not music. The goal of this activity is to...

Students are introduced to different ways of displaying visual spectra, including colored "barcode" spectra, like those produced by a diffraction grating, and line plots displaying intensity versus color, or wavelength. Students learn...

A simple experiment through which students observe the connection between color and heat and prove that dark-colored objects and light-colored objects heat at different rates, even when exposed to the same heat or light source.