In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, cast members make a seismometer and experiment with different ways to make it register movement.

Osmo is an app that teaches kids everything from coding to math. Osmo has been adopted in over 30,000 schools in 42 countries around the world. Teachers are raving about how their students love experimenting, exploring, creating and collaborating with Osmo.

BluTrack is a two lane, flexible racetrack. BluTrack is both fun and educational. Bring the racetrack to your library with the Blutrack racing system! See how to implement BluTrack activities in your library. This guide includes: A list of what you’ll need, tips for choosing a theme, ideas to run a library activity, and a DIY (“How To”) guide for the youth.

This video adapted from NASA explains how a magnetometer determines magnetic fields around planets.

A realistic mass and spring laboratory. Hang masses from springs and adjust the spring stiffness and damping. You can even slow time. Transport the lab to different planets. A chart shows the kinetic, potential, and thermal energy for each spring.

This simulation provides a realistic virtual mass-and-spring laboratory. Users can explore spring motion by manipulating stiffness of the spring and mass of the hanging weight. Concepts of Hooke's Law and elastic potential energy are further clarified through charts showing kinetic, potential, and thermal energy for each spring. This item is part of a larger collection of simulations developed by the Physics Education Technology project (PhET). The simulations are animated, interactive, and game-like environments in which students learn through exploration. All of the sims are freely available from the PhET website for incorporation into classes.

A realistic mass and spring laboratory. Hang masses from springs and adjust the spring stiffness and damping. You can even slow time. Transport the lab to different planets. A chart shows the kinetic, potential, and thermal energy for each spring.

Two astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) describe mass and weight and the differences between the two in this video from NASA’s Teaching From Space initiative.

This data analysis activity requires students to read and interpret six written or graphical representations of data. Students must determine which graphs and analysis belong together. The data representations used include a pictograph, a circle graph, a frequency chart, a bar graph, and two written analyses including the terms mode, median, and mean for each data set. Included with the activity are teacher's notes, a hint, and the solution.

Children will do an activity that fosters conversations around the cause and effect of push and pull activities.

Learn about position, velocity, and acceleration in the "Arena of Pain". Use the green arrow to move the ball. Add more walls to the arena to make the game more difficult. Try to make a goal as fast as you can.

This brief article for young learners describes how ancient cultures developed units of measurement like the cubit and foot, and how estimation and precision play a role in measuring today. A printable page is available.

The main aim of this lesson is to show students that distances may be determined without a meter stick—a concept fundamental to such measurements in astronomy. It introduces students to the main concepts behind the first rung of what astronomers call the distance ladder. The four main learning objectives are the following: 1) Explore, in practice, a means of measuring distances without what we most often consider the “direct” means: a meter stick; 2) Understand the limits of a method through the exploration of uncertainties; 3) Understand in the particular method used, the relationship between baseline and the accuracy of the measurement; and 4) Understand the astronomical applications and implications of the method and its limits. Students should be able to use trigonometry and know the relation between trigonometric functions and the triangle. A knowledge of derivatives is also needed to obtain the expression for the uncertainty on the distance measured. Students will need cardboard cut into disks. The number of disks is essentially equal to half the students in the class. Two straight drink straws and one pin per disk. Students will also need a protractor. The lesson should not take more than 50 minutes to complete if the students have the mathematical ability mentioned above. This lesson is complimentary to the BLOSSOMS lesson, "The Parallax Activity." The two lessons could be used sequentially - this one being more advanced - or they could be used separately.

This video segment adapted from Discovering Women profiles Fermilab physicist and Harvard professor Melissa Franklin.

Insert channels in a membrane and see what happens. See how different types of channels allow particles to move through the membrane.

Learn about an important physics experiment that uses an invention that manipulates light in this interactive activity adapted from NASA.

In this video from DragonflyTV, Tiana and Sammy measure, record, and analyze the results of a drop box test to find out how everyday items behave in microgravity.

How do microwaves heat up your coffee? Adjust the frequency and amplitude of microwaves. Watch water molecules rotating and bouncing around. View the microwave field as a wave, a single line of vectors, or the entire field.

A collaboration between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the CK-12 Foundation, this book provides high school mathematics and physics teachers with an introduction to the main principles of modeling and simulation used in science and engineering. An appendix of lesson plans is included.

How did scientists figure out the structure of atoms without looking at them? Try out different models by shooting light at the atom. Check how the prediction of the model matches the experimental results.