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Homeschool Class Descriptions

We will choose from the list below (unless you have a suggestion that seems more interesting). Depending on the students’ interest, we may spend more time on certain topics and omit others, so actual lessons covered in the class may differ from this list.

Winter 2012 Teen Class (age 11-16):

1. Liquid Crystals: Discover how fatty stuff plus a little bit of heat can make rainbows and how to avoid being seen at night when you are misbehaving.

2. Hunting Wild Vicious Teddy Bears: A super clever Teddy Bear thinks he has a fool-proof way to prevent lead poisoning from your rifle… will he succeed?

3. Ballista: The giant crossbow on the wall has been clamoring for a chance to shoot something, so all you have to do is design a castle that will entirely collapse when hit with the ballista arrow.

4. Exploding Film Cans: Discover ways to make exploding film cans propel an object as high as possible.

5. Irish Spinner: This weird chunk of plastic has a mind of its own… spin it one way and it will stop and start spinning the other way all by itself. All you have to do is make one of your own that will do the same thing!

6. Curie Point: You get to cook some magnets in an oven at 1000 degrees and with torches to see what happens and then you need to find a way to reverse whatever it was that happened.

7. Pressure Versus Volume: If you jump out of a spaceship without your space suit, what will happen? You will get to try marshmallows, balloons, and soda pop in a vacuum chamber to see what they do.

8. Boiling Point Depression: Does water get depressed when it is boiled? What would happen if you poured salt into boiling water? We’ll just have to try it to see.

9. Screw and Magnet Motor: Make an electric motor the hard way and then make another one the easy way to see which one you like the best.

Winter 2012 Middle Class & After-School Class (age 7-12):
The classes for Younger (age 5-8) and Mixed Ages (age 5-16) will cover the same general topics as the Middle Class, but the presentations and experiments will be adapted as needed for the students’ ages and skill levels.

1. Wind Tunnel!: Use five leaf blowers to create winds at up to 150 miles per hour and create something like a kite that will stay in the wind and create the greatest amount of force.

2. Mountain Rescue: Work together to lift a person off of the ground with ropes, levers, and pulleys.

3. Lasers and Mirrors: Discover how mirrors can give you a million eyes, create infinitely long tunnels, and make you look like a minion. Then add lasers and stage fog to see what happens.

4. Electrical Experience: Do all the stuff you are not supposed to do with wires, lights, motors, and bells just to see what will happen.

5. Magnetism: Build a weird creature and find a way to make it move unsafely through evil Mister Fred’s back yard.

6. Wind Chill Factor: Freeze your fingers but not your toes and build a super-efficient propeller to help gauge wind speed. By the way, will your gauge gouge the wind?

7. Static Electricity: Think lightning and thunder, hair standing straight up, and shiny things floating away all by themselves.

8. Glow Sticks: Make glow sticks glow brighter or dimmer, cut them open and get the chemicals all over the place, and try to catch a glowing object in the dark.

9. Catapults: Make a goofy machine that can throw a grape as far as possible.

10. Foam Cutters: Use electricity to melt foam into wonderful shapes.