Skip to main content

Have your own classroom science fair today with RAFT hands on Activity Kits!

Can’t make it to the White House Science Fair today? Here are some great hands on ideas for your own local Science Fair!

Resource Area For Teaching (RAFT) has over 600 Idea Sheets with more than 400 focused on Sciences – Life Science, Earth/Space Science and Physical Science. These idea sheets can lead to a myriad of possibilities! Here are a few RAFT hands on Science activity ideas that you can even conduct as a classroom science project!

Colors of Light
A Student enjoying the color patterns
in the easily built spectroscope.
Make your own with the
RAFT Colors of Light Activity Kit!
  • White light is actually a combination of different colors. This easily built spectroscope allows students to separate the incoming light into its component colors, forming a light spectrum (rainbow). Besides creating interesting color patterns it can be used to identify different sources of light.
  • Grade Range: K - 12
  • Download Idea Sheet
  • Buy Activity Kit
Hovercraft
Floating Garden of Magnets (physics)
Gravity Defying Frog (physics/art)
The RAFT Gravity Defying Frog Activity Kit
  • Students will investigate cause and effect, center of mass, balance, and stable equilibrium while they create this fascinating, scientific toy!
  • Grade Range: K - 8 
  • Download Idea Sheet
  • Buy Activity Kit


You can also find STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) related hands on RAFT Idea Sheets and Activity Kits that conform to curriculum standards at www.raft.net.

Have you tried out any of these kits? Give us your feedback! Do you have more innovative hands on ideas to teach science or STEM subjects? Share it with us!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Science fairs: Nurturing the 21st century thinker

3D Tessellation model A bespectacled 6th grader enthusiastically explains ‘efficiency of 3D space tessellations’ with myriad equations and handmade tessellation patterns to address the needs of the packaging, storing, shipping and construction industry. Another middle school student, was inspired by his little brother’s telescope and built a simple vacuum chamber using a PVC pipe with a microphone and a speaker on both ends to find out how sound travels on Mars! This 8th grader from Granada Islamic School used an oscilloscope his mother found at an auction to measure the sounds. “I poke around and find junk to build my projects. It’s fun.” Science projects today have become fun for many students as they use more hands on activities to experiment and understand concepts. These two middle school students were among 996 participants at the recent Synopsys Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship , where RAFT was one of the special judges. Moenes Iskarous, President, S...
18 comments
Read more

How does math relate to real life?

By Jeanne Lazzarini, Math Master Educator/R&D Specialist, RAFT How does math relate to real life?   One way is to take a look at the shape of a cloud, a mountain, a coastline, or a tree!   You might be surprised to find that many patterns in nature, called fractals, including growth patterns, have very peculiar mathematical properties ---   even though these natural shapes are not perfect spheres, circles, cones, triangles, or even straight lines!  3D Fractals For Inspiration   So, what is a fractal?   Benoit Mandelbrot (November 20, 1924 – October 14, 2010) is commonly called the father of fractals. He created the term “fractal” to describe curves, surfaces and objects that have some very peculiar properties. A fractal is a geometric shape which is both self-similar and has fractional dimension.    Daydreaming fractals Ok, so what does that mean?   Well, “self-similar” means that when you magnify an object, each of...
Post a Comment
Read more

Let’s Talk Innovation: Adapting Ideas From RAFT’s Innovation Institute for Your Curriculum

By Jen Rodgers, 8th Grade Science Teacher Last summer I attended RAFT’s two-day "Innovation Institute."  It would take several posts to share with you everything I learned and was able to apply to my classroom.  However I would like to share one activity with you this time, and how I adapted this to teach a concept in my class. I teach 8th grade science, and one of the standards we teach is how to use the Periodic Table of Elements and what the patterns are in the periodic table.  We know how amazing the science is behind the Periodic Table of Elements.  But translating that to 14 year olds and letting them discover how incredible it is that everything we know is made of these few elements that share so many characteristics and all fall into this pattern is no small feat.  We teach them about groups and periods, valence electrons, metals and non­metals, and how the characteristics follow a pattern and why.  Using RAFT’s Idea Sheet “Thinking on the Out...
Post a Comment
Read more