RAFT Hands-On Education

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 Create a simple hov...

Want to teach your students about basic electric circuits using hands on methods? Then the “Battery Science -  Light and Power Up the Learning!” RAFT workshop is just the thing for you! The hands on workshop at San Jose RAFT is held tomorrow (February 4th) from 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. The workshop incorporates newly developed and simplified electrical activities including the redesigned breadboard circuit Activity Kit ! Kids will love to tap into these activities to make things light up, move, and buzz and the learning will build as they make the ‘connections’! The workshop supply bag will include sets of motors, buzzers, bulbs, batteries, wire, and more RAFT Materials so that you can duplicate the activities with your students. The materials can enhance 4th grade lessons on electricity, or be used for enrichment, after school, or summer programs. The workshop is conducted by Michael Pollock who has taught hands on science to elementary students for 25 years. He currently w...

Great educators, such as John Dewey, Maria Montessori, Rudolph Steiner, Reggio Emilia, John Holt, and countless other education leaders all agree on one thing: children learn best when they are actively engaged in education, and the best way to engage them is to involve them with hands-on curricula. Especially for lesson plans in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), the best way to make any topic come alive and make the learning memorable, is to bring the students right to the table and get their hands actively moving. Retention is a key element of academic achievement; making lessons memorable is critically necessary. Fun, excitement, appropriate challenges, and solvable problems are all aspects that make the learning of difficult concepts seem easier and their applications more obvious. Comprehension and retention both flow from hands-on learning activities .