STEM Activities for Kids (482 results)

Falling Buttered Toast

STEM Activity

3 reviews

As I was buttering toast on a beautiful Sunday morning, one piece slid off the table and tumbled down. It smacked buttered-side down on the carpet. “Bad luck” flashed through my head—but was it a matter of chance, or was the toast doomed to reach the ground buttered-side down? Time for science to tell us! Take a slice, try it out and learn about the science behind a falling slice of toast! Read more

Fancy Foams with Shampoo Science

STEM Activity

4 reviews

Do you like your hair shiny and beautiful? The key to keeping your hair nice and clean is to use a good shampoo. But what exactly makes a good shampoo? You might be surprised to hear that every new shampoo has to pass lots of scientific tests before it is considered good enough to be sold. Many different shampoo recipes are compared to decide which one is the best for the consumer. One of these tests assesses the foaming behavior of the shampoo. You probably trust a shampoo that makes lots of… Read more

Find the Missing Ingredient

STEM Activity

3 reviews

Food advertisements and labels bombard us with enticing slogans and attractive images, luring us into consuming the food. But have you ever wondered how nutritious the food is? Have you ever looked at a nutrition facts label and wondered what the columns of words and numbers meant? This activity will shed some light on the label. You will explore serving sizes and nutrients, and might find a discrepancy. Why would the sum of the nutrients not always add up to the total? Like a detective,… Read more

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Make String from Algae

STEM Activity

210 reviews

Did you know that the seaweed you've seen in the ocean or even eaten as a snack is inspiring innovators to imagine new materials? Large brown algae, like kelp, contains polymers—long chains of molecules—that are more environmentally friendly than the ones in most plastics. These natural polymers (alginates) could eventually be used to create sustainable everyday objects. Try your hand at using a bit of chemistry to turn biodegradable polymers from algae into your own custom… Read more

Go Suck an Egg!

STEM Activity

2 reviews

Have you ever been helping in the kitchen and found yourself with a recipe that calls for egg whites? Do you use the egg shell to separate the egg yolk from the egg white? Instead of using the shell to separate them, you can use science! In this activity, you will use simple tools to explore how physics can help you do everyday tasks – such as separate egg yolks from egg whites. Read more

How Sour or How Sweet is Your Lemonade?

STEM Activity

Cooking is a fun and rewarding activity, allowing you to be cook and a scientist at the same time, experimenting with endless taste combinations! The five tastes humans can experience are: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. But have you ever experienced some combinations that were delicious and others that were downright yucky? How do cooks come up with delicious recipes, and even more amazingly, how can they replicate the same exact flavors over and over again? Does science have anything to… Read more

How to Help Pass Gas

STEM Activity

1 review

Has your stomach ever ached so bad you felt as if it was blown up like a balloon—maybe after the big Thanksgiving meal? You may have had a large amount of gas trapped in your stomach and intestines. But where does the gas come from that makes you feel so uncomfortable, and how does it disappear again? In this activity, you will blow some bubbles to investigate how a specific medicine can help you feel better, so next time your tummy hurts because you are bloated, you will know how to cure… Read more

How Warm is Just Sweet Enough?

STEM Activity

3 reviews

Can you recall how a piece of warm apple pie or a cup of hot chocolate milk tastes when you let it cool? Maybe you even prefer to have these treats at room temperature. Why is this? Can flavor change even when you are not adding ingredients, cook or bake it? Try this activity and discover how temperature influences flavor! Read more

Interfering Patterns

STEM Activity

1 review

Ever wonder why most people love patterns? We see patterns in art and music, and also in our daily lives. Patterns can provide a sense of order and can make a hectic-looking world a little more manageable. They are the basis of many assumptions and predictions. We assume we will have lunch at noon, as that is what we always do; we predict thunderclouds will bring rain, as these clouds always bring rain; and you might expect your parents to get mad when you disobey, as that is what has followed… Read more

Keep Your Candy Cool With the Power of Evaporation!

STEM Activity

11 reviews

Have you ever wondered how sweating helps keep you cool on a hot summer day? Sweat, which is mostly water, cools us down when it evaporates. When water evaporates, it changes from a liquid to a gas. The gas carries away heat with it, helping to remove heat from your skin. Not only can evaporation cool down your body, it can also cool down other things, such as chocolate. Heat on a hot summer day can turn your solid candy bar into a gooey, melted mess, but how well can evaporation keep your… Read more

Liver Stinks!

STEM Activity

6 reviews

Your liver is important for cleaning up any potentially dangerous substances you consume. But how does it do it?—With a little help from some complex chemistry. Within your liver, as within every tissue in the body, many chemical reactions occur. Often these reactions require "help" to happen at a faster speed, and this can be supplied by enzymes—tiny types of proteins. The liver uses specialized enzymes to help it break down toxic substances and make them safer for the… Read more

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