If you’ve landed here, you are probably looking for ways to do science at home. We can’t imagine a better idea and we’d like to help spur ideas. And, we’d love to hear from you about some of your own scientific pursuits!
Random Acts of Science
We’re building a collection of at-home science ideas and inspirations. On our blog and other places, we try to tag each of these as a #randomactofscience. You can tune into and even subscribe to the news blog for new ideas as we come up with them. Here’s a list of some of these that we’ll try to keep updated:
- Looking Up and Beyond — a way to count stars, measure light pollution, and get started in “citizen science”
- Phonebooks and Earthquakes — a demonstration and challenge to tear the crust of the earth
- The Hot Chocolate Effect — an investigation about unexpected pitch changes and how hot chocolate or other mysterious materials can make these happen
- Bubble Making — we often get asked about our bubble recipe. We demonstrate how we make our large batches for giant bubbles
- Color Changes — materials have different chemical properties that you might not immediately detect, but they can create dramatic color changes you can see at home.
- Science & Children & Adults — our orientation to how we think about the purpose of science with kids of all ages
Recipes & How-to:
- A collection of “how to” instructional videos
This is a project we created to show you more about the behind-the-scenes and activities that we typically do in the parks. - Science in the Parks Goo Recipes
This includes our slime and Oobleck that we feature on Feel It! day, as well as one version of a bubble recipe that we use on Move It! day. - Super Bubble recipe
This is our most tried-and-true bubble recipe. It takes a few more ingredients, but it’s the one from which we get the really giant bubbles, especially on cooler, more humid days. - More bubble recipes
The recipe we actually use for giant bubbles in the parks comes largely from ideas on this page. This wiki has lots of discussion about ingredients and inventive ways to make giant, long lasting bubbles. Because it’s a wiki, you can submit your own recipes as well!
Equipment & Materials:
Most things we get at grocery or hardware stores, but some more specialized items we get are found at some of these science education suppliers. We’ve used each of these for different items:
Science in the Parks 