Experiments and activities

Looking to test a hypothesis? Want to build something new? Hoping to try out a new game? These experiments and activities will flex your brain while you're having fun!
A child looks excitedly at their aluminum foil boat in a tub of water.

At "Take Your Child To Work Day" the NOAA family was invited to bring their kids to work at the Silver Spring, Maryland, campus on April 25, 2019. This activity involves building a boat with a piece of aluminum foil that can hold the weight of as many paperclips as possible! (Image credit: Kayla do Couto/NOAA)

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You can find more hands-on activities and much more in our Sea to Sky database. You can bookmark this link, which will take you directly to the Sea to Sky database with hands-on and activity/demonstration pre-selected. You can further refine by subject, topic, or other filters as needed.

You can also find other hands-on activities on this page. 

Discover Your Changing World With NOAA

Are you ready to discover your changing world? This free activity book will help you learn about Earth's climate system, the factors that drive and change it, the impacts of those changes, and what you can do to explore, understand, and protect our Earth. 

Discover Your World With NOAA

Enjoy dozens of hands-on activities and lessons in this free activity for students and educators. 

Hands-on science activities

Need a quick activity for earth science education? These hands-on activities can be done in 15-30 minutes that get students thinking about how things really work. Activities were developed by NOAA Teacher At Sea alumni and other NOAA partners and each has been tested with students of various ages.

JetStream: An online school for weather

JetStream, the National Weather Service Online Weather School, has a collection of dozens of activities and experiments on the atmosphere, global circulations, clouds, severe weather, and more. Most of these can be done with low-cost, household materials.

Oceanography in a mug: Lessons in physics and chemistry from your favorite winter drinks

When it’s cold outside, there’s nothing cozier than a warm mug of cocoa, some spiced cider, or a steaming cup of your favorite tea. But here at NOAA, we always have Earth science on the brain. As we settled down to relax with our warm winter drinks, our inner oceanographers couldn’t help but think, hey, that looks familiar! These five activities show important principles of oceanography using delicious drinks and some household materials.

SciJinks scavenger hunt

Go on a quest for weather knowledge or use this weather scavenger hunt in your next lesson! Students read the selected articles on the SciJinks website to find the answers to each clue. Once they have all the clues, they will be able to spell the secret word!