Science Buddies Blog (Page 12)

Plastics and Earth Day STEM

April 15, 2024 6:00 AM

Find science projects and STEM resources to explore environmental problems related to plastics for Earth Day. The theme of Earth Day 2024 is Planet vs. Plastics. This focus highlights the dangers of plastics for lifeforms, biodiversity, the environment, and the planet. Addressing problems related to plastics involves a number of strategies, including: Reducing the overall use of plastics Finding alternatives to plastics Prioritizing… Read more

Rubber Band Car Challenge Entries Cross the Finish Line!

April 4, 2024 8:00 AM

The Rubber Band Car Challenge sparked interest in engineering in thousands of students around the world. Winners have been announced. Above: a few of the many students who participated in the 2024 Rubber Band Car Challenge The 2024 Science Buddies Engineering Challenge More than 8,800 K-12 students explored engineering and entered the 2024 Science Buddies Engineering Challenge. Working in teams of 1-4, students from 32 countries took the Rubber Band… Read more

10+ Robotics Projects with the BlueBot Kit

April 3, 2024 8:00 AM

Use the BlueBot Robotics kit for a progressive series of robotics engineering and Arduino programming and physical computing projects, from intermediate to advanced. The BlueBot 4-in-1 Robotics Kit comes with the electronics parts to build four different robots, each with its own sensor-driven behavior. The kit is excellent as a starter kit for students interested in robotics engineering and ready to build circuits on a breadboard, and the first four… Read more

Plan for the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse

March 27, 2024 8:00 AM

Are you in the path of totality for the April 2024 solar eclipse? What will you and your students see? What related science projects can students do to learn more? Image: A view of the Aug. 21, 2017, total solar eclipse from Madras, Oregon. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Solar Eclipse Science for Students What happens when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun? A solar eclipse! During a solar eclipse, the Moon blocks some or all… Read more

5 STEM Activities with Marshmallow Peeps

March 22, 2024 6:00 AM

Colorful Peeps candies are popular Spring treats. Put your extras to use with one of these five easy science activities for some bunny-inspired STEM fun. We've shared ideas in the past for egg boiling and egg dyeing, fun and unusual egg shapes, and even using the Ping Pong Catapult for launching plastic eggs. Egg science can be a lot of fun! This year, our scientists have Peeps® on the brain. If you have extra marshmallow Peeps in coming weeks,… Read more

Making Recycling Sorting Machines—STEM Success

March 15, 2024 8:00 AM

This teacher had students design and build sorting machines as part of an environmental science engineering unit. Connecting Engineering to Real-world Problems STEM Success! Educator: Kelly Long, Renaissance Charter School, Cooper City, Florida Resource: Build a Recycling-Sorting Machine Summary: Middle school students made sorting machines as part of… Read more

15 Density Science Experiments

March 13, 2024 8:00 AM

Use these free science lessons, experiments, and activities to teach K-12 students about density. Sometimes students wrongly think that an object's density is the same as its weight or its mass. Instead, density refers to an object's mass in a given volume. Two objects that have the same shape and size (volume) but have a different mass (like two same-sized balls with different weights) have different densities. As a physical property of… Read more

6 Picks for St. Patrick's Day STEM

March 11, 2024 6:00 AM

Bring on the luck of the Irish with these six fun, hands-on STEM projects for St. Patrick's Day! From the magical pot of gold at the end of a rainbow to lucky charms, leprechauns, shamrocks and more, St. Patrick's Day is brimming with opportunities to tweak science and engineering activities to fit the day. Try one of these green picks for chemistry, engineering, and physics fun with students of all ages: Leprechaun Snot: It just takes a bit of… Read more

Mario Day STEM — Bring Mario World to Life with Hands-on Science and Engineering Activities!

March 4, 2024 6:00 AM

Try these clever STEM activities to connect hands-on science and engineering to the ever-popular world of Mario! Let's-a go! Your kids and students probably know Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Bowser, and the Mario World gang, and chances are you do, too! March 10 is Mario Day, so known because in the right typeface, M A R 1 0 looks like M A R I O. (Once you see it, you see it!) This is the kind of clever… Read more

Elevate Your Science Classroom: Taking Independent Student Science Projects to the Next Level

February 22, 2024 8:00 AM

In part three of the "Why Do Science Projects" series, we review strategies to support advanced science and engineering projects. Science fair projects have been a staple of the American science classroom for decades, but these competitions have come a long way from the volcanoes and potato batteries of the past. National Geographic's new docuseries, Science Fair: The Series, highlights some of the impressive projects being completed by high school… Read more

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