6 Back-to-School Activities to Get Students Excited About Science
Make that crucial first impression at the start of this school year with these six fun science activities for students of all ages. Not a teacher? You can still have fun with these at home!
It’s back-to-school time and, as we all know, first impressions are crucial. Here are six science activities to help start the year off right—whether you want to get your students thinking about the scientific process or you just want to wow them. Not a teacher? Try these at home to pique the interest of a young budding scientist in your house, even if it’s your inner young budding scientist.
The Nature of Scientific Inquiry
1) One of my favorite activities for the first day of class, no matter what the age group, is to ask students to simply “draw a scientist.” If they ask for more specific instructions, resist the urge to prompt them any further. Once most of the students have finished their drawings, ask a few of them to share and explain their drawings to the class. Alternatively, they can break into groups and share amongst their groups.
Then, as a class, discuss what, if any, themes were common amongst the drawings. Almost always the same few stereotypes are represented: male, glasses, crazy hair, lab coat, or other lab equipment. Discuss where these stereotypes come from and brainstorm together famous scientists that do not fit that mold. For older students, you can further extend the activity by asking them to find examples of scientists being portrayed in popular culture, such as television shows, movies, or cartoons, and compare those results to the class’ drawings.
As a gauge of each student’s investment in science throughout your course, ask the students to repeat the exercise on the last day of class. Hopefully the results will be much more diverse and reflect the students themselves.
Ask students to write about (or for younger students to draw) something scientific they did over the summer. Again, resist giving them any further direction. The goal behind this exercise is to inspire them to think of themselves as scientists. They will also be encouraged to see the constant role science plays in everyday activities. As a bonus, you will learn a bit about your students!
Activities to Break the Ice 
Give each student a piece of paper, a roll of tape, and scissors and instruct them to build the tallest, free-standing paper tower that they can with those materials. For larger classes, students can work in groups so that they start off actively participating and getting to know their classmates. Encourage the students to discuss as a group which ideas worked versus failed and how they came up with their end result. An alternate version of this activity is to instead make paper airplanes and have a contest judged on distance traveled and height reached.
Encourage students to get into groups of three to four and ask them to time how long it takes each group member to walk/jog/run a specified distance (depending on the size of your classroom/hallway). Don’t provide meter sticks so that they must come up with their own way of estimating distance. At the end of the activity, have them report their method for determining distance as well as an average that they have calculated for the group. If a group misjudged the distance, their results should be different! To lighten things up, also have them report an average for a “silly walk” of their invention that cannot be classified as walking, jogging, or running.
Wow your Students with Science
1) Dry ice, or frozen carbon dioxide, is guaranteed to get your students’ attention thanks to its eerie fog-like appearance and its ability to create erupting, bubbling potions. Dry ice is much colder than ice made from water. When it melts, it turns into a gas at room temperature (a process called sublimation) unlike water ice that ends in a liquid puddle. Thus simply putting a chunk of dry ice into glass of warm water will start the process of turning the solid ice into a gas in an impressive show. Add food coloring to the water to make things even more exciting.
You can also add a bit of liquid soap to the warm water. The soap will trap the carbon dioxide gas bubbles released by the dry ice as it warms. The bubbles will slowly climb to the top of the glass before bursting outward once they reach the surface.
Note that since dry ice is much colder than ice made from water, it must be handled with thick protective gloves and tongs. A quick internet search will tell you where to find dry ice in your area, and some large supermarkets like Safeway carry it. Dry ice is usually sold by the pound, so plan on 1-2 pounds per planned demo.
For a fun astronomy connection, you can also build a “comet” in the classroom using dry ice, a bit of ammonia (from household cleaners), and some organics (like syrup). PBS and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have a great summary of how the processes at work in this model comet are a pretty accurate representation of how we think real comets behave.
A few notes on dry ice storage: do NOT put dry ice in a sealed container because the gas pressure will continue to build up; 2) do NOT store dry ice in your freezer since the much colder temperature of the dry ice will likely break the thermostat; and 3) instead always purchase dry ice as close to the time of your demo as possible and keep it in a cooler with a loosely placed, partially ajar lid.
The Coke and Mentos geyser is a classic, and messy, crowd pleaser. When added to the soda, the mints release carbon dioxide gas bubbles that force the liquid out of its bottle. The mints also sink to the bottom of the bottle which increases the eruption effect.
You can test the importance of each component of the experiment by varying the ingredients. The cratered surface specific to Mentos enhances the geyser effect by increasing the surface area of the mint and thus speeding up the reaction. Each little candy crater is called a “nucleation site” or, in other words, a spot where gas can be released. The aspartame in diet drinks is also known to increase the effect, so Diet Coke will produce a more powerful geyser while very little happens if the soda is instead replaced with sparkling water.
There are also many, many videos online to help you get started, including Steve Spangler’s viral video from 2005.
Until next time, this is Sabrina Stierwalt with Ask Science’s Quick and Dirty Tips for helping you make sense of science. Do you have a favorite back-to-school science activity? Please leave it in the comments! You can become a fan of Ask Science on Facebook or follow me on Twitter, where I’m @QDTeinstein. If you have a question that you’d like to see on a future episode, send me an email at everydayeinstein@quickanddirtytips.comcreate new email.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock.
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About the Author
Dr Sabrina Stierwalt earned a Ph.D. in Astronomy & Astrophysics from Cornell University and is now a Professor of Physics at Occidental College.
