STEM Activities for Kids (457 results)

Have you ever made ice cream? It can be a lot of fun, and you end up with a tasty frozen treat! There is actually a lot of interesting chemistry that goes on behind making ice cream. For example, think about how you start out with refrigerated (or room-temperature) ingredients and then need to cool them down to turn them turn into ice cream. How do the ingredients change during this process? How important do you think it is that they are cooled to a certain temperature? In this science… Read more

Have you ever ridden a roller coaster? Have you ever wanted to design your own? There are plenty of expensive toys and even video games that will let you build your own coasters—but in this project you'll make one out of paper and tape, and learn about roller coaster physics along the way! Read more

Have you ever stretched and launched a rubber band at someone? Put that energy to good use and build a rubber band-powered cotton ball launcher in this fun activity! Read more

Make a colorful erupting volcano in your kitchen with lemons and baking soda! Read more

Blast off! Have you ever played with a model or toy rocket, or seen a real rocket launch on TV? In this project you will make simple rockets out of paper and launch them by blowing into a drinking straw. Can you make the rocket that flies the farthest? Read more

Have you ever heard that plastic can be made out of milk? If this sounds like something made-up to you, you may be surprised to learn that from the early 1900s until about 1945, milk was commonly used to make many different plastic ornaments, including buttons, decorative buckles, beads and other jewelry, fountain pens, the backings for hand-held mirrors, and fancy comb and brush sets. Milk plastic (usually called casein plastic) was even used to make jewelry for Queen Mary of England! In… Read more

Have you ever cooked something outside, like for a BBQ or while camping? It can be a lot of fun to be outdoors and enjoy eating the fruits — or burgers — of your cooking labors. Did you know that you can directly use solar power to cook food? This can be done using a solar oven, which is a low-cost, ecologically-friendly technology that seems to have everything going for it. In this science activity, you will build your very own simple solar oven out of a pizza box to gather the… Read more

Have you ever seen a lava lamp? They were the height of 1960's "groovy" room decorations. A few minutes after turning it on, a lava lamp has blobs of colored liquid floating towards the top of the lamp and then drifting back down. Making an actual lava lamp that you plug in would require some effort and unusual supplies, but you can create a non-electric version in just a few minutes with the help of the fizzing power of Alka-Seltzer. In this activity you can find out how to make your own… Read more

Is that a sailboat or a sail...car? Design and build a toy car powered by the wind in this fun engineering project! Read more

With a few simple ingredients, you can create a "fire snake" that appears to grow out of nowhere in this fun experiment! Although it looks magical, no magic is involved—it is all because of a chemical reaction. Try it to find out how it works! Read more