Spooktacular Halloween Science
Science Buddies has great hands-on projects and activities that teachers can use to tie in with Halloween excitement. Whether you are looking for a project related to candy or costumes or Halloween-inspired electronics and robotics, we have plenty of suggestions for student STEM that can help turn an ordinary October day in science class into something spooktacular!
Halloween Science for K-12 Students
To spark Halloween-themed science experimentation or discussion, see the following projects and activities:
Blood Clotting to the Rescue: How to Stop Too Much Blood from Flowing: students learn about human biology and coagulation while getting hands-on using spherification to make "balls" that stand in for blood in the project.
Build a Brushbot: use assorted chunky cleaning brushes to explore basic robotics with a brush head vibrobot. (See our Halloween-inspired student example.)
Build a Gumdrop Geodesic Dome: explore math, science, and engineering by building a geodesic dome from candies and toothpicks. (See our Halloween spin on this project with candy corn gum drops.)
Electric Play Dough Project 1: Make Your Play Dough Light Up, Buzz, & Move!: experiment with introductory circuits using insulating and conducting doughs and LEDs. (See Electronics and Play Dough: Fun, Tactile Family Science for our Halloween spin on this introductory electronics project.)
Explore Glow-in-the-Dark Water! : use tonic water, bleach, and a black light to make the tonic water glow.
Exploring Mummification with Hot Dogs: what can you learn about ancient Egypt and science from a hot dot? The end result may be creepy and gross, but kids love it! (Note: this project takes several days of wait-time to complete, but students will love the cool factor of knowing that something is mummifying in a box somewhere in the room!)
How Bright Is Your Glow Stick? Measure It!: match up popular glow sticks with a chemistry and electronics project by building a simple device to measure the intensity of light produced by glow sticks and other glow-in-the-dark materials.
Juice Balls: The Science of Spherification: depending on the color of the beverage used, juice balls can easily be part of a brains- or guts-inspired Halloween treat... that they can eat! (See our hands-on test for an up-close look at the juice balls experiment.)
LED Dance Glove: Get the Party Started with Your Own Interactive Light Show: create a glove (or other piece of clothing) with a wearable light-up circuit for science they can really see in the dark! (See our hands-on write-up for an example of a light-up skeleton cat patch. This science project makes for a great, creative, hands-on science experiment. Students walk away in the end with something they can wear.)
Make an Alka-Seltzer Powered Lava Lamp: make a fun non-electric lava lamp with the help of the fizzing power of Alka-Seltzer®.
Potato Battery: How to Turn Produce into Veggie Power!: explore battery basics using potatoes or other vegetables in this introductory electronics project. (See our Halloween-inspired pumpkin and squash battery experiments.)
More Halloween STEM
For other spooky ideas to pair hands-on science with Halloween, see:
- Halloween STEM Roundup
- Slime, Catapults, and Halloween Science
- Science Projects that Double as Halloween Costumes
- Halloween Science Connections
- Glow-in-the-dark Chemistry
- Wire Some Trick-or-Treat or Light-up Fun with Scratch and Raspberry Pi
- A Trick of the Eye for Halloween
- Biodiversity at Halloween: A Spider Variety Show
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