The Exploratorium - The Exploratorium Science Snackbook: Cook Up Over 100 Hands-On Science Exhibits from Everyday Materials

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Table of Contents

Welcome to the 2009 Edition of theExploratorium Science Snackbook

The Exploratorium turned forty in 2009, and this volume is just one of the many ways were celebrating four decades of creativity, collaboration, and growth with the science-education community.

This book, originally published in 1991, began as a labor of love, as science teachers from the San Francisco Bay Area looked for innovative ways to bring the Exploratorium experience into their classroomsall on a teachers budget! Today, these explorations have been adapted for schoolrooms, universities, and educational enrichment programs all over the world.

We hope this new edition of the Exploratorium Science Snackbook continues to offer new insights and tools to inspire teaching and learning in the sciences and beyond.

Dennis Bartels
Executive Director, Exploratorium
San Francisco
July, 2009

Introduction

This book is full of Snacks ... but theyre not the kind you eat. Exploratorium Science Snacks are miniature versions of some of the most popular exhibits, demonstrations, and activities at the Exploratorium, San Franciscos famed museum of science, art, and human perception.

For lack of a better description, the Exploratorium calls itself a museum. But the half-million visitors who come through the doors each year dont find hushed corridors, watchful guards, or do not touch signs. Instead, they walk into a cavernous space filled with whirring, buzzing, spinning things, where people of all ages are smiling and laughing and calling out to one another.

At the Exploratorium, you can touch a tornado, look inside an eye, or pull a giant bubble over your head. You can make your way through a pitch-dark labyrinth using only your sense of touch, participate in a lecture and discussion with some of the leading scientists of the day, or watch the production of a live Webcast. When youre done, you might find that you understand a little more about the world around you than you ever have before.

What is a science Snack?

Since the Exploratorium opened in 1969, teachers from the San Francisco Bay Area have brought their classes on field trips. As the popularity and reputation of the museum spread, teachers began to ask if there might be some way to bring the popular hands-on exhibits to their students. Our response was the creation of the Snackbook.

For three years, nearly a hundred teachers from the museums Teacher Institute worked with staff members to create scaled-down versions of Exploratorium exhibits. The results were dozens of exciting Snacksminiature science exhibits and investigations that teachers could make using familiar, inexpensive, easily available materials.

Why are they called Snacks?

At the Exploratorium, nobody thinks twice when someone says theyre building a Snack. People know theyre a lot more likely to get instructions for creating a mini-exhibit than they are to get something to eat. Over the years, a community of teachers has spread the term to some far-flung places, but few know how it began. In fact, three books containing detailed instructions, or recipes, for building exact full-sized replicas of Exploratorium exhibits were published in the 1980s. These publications, designed for other science museums engaged in building their own exhibit collections, were called Cookbooks. Need we say more?

What can you do with a Snack?

When this book was originally published, we knew teachers would be able to use Snacks as demonstrations, lessons, and labs, and that students could use Snacks for group and individual projects. But it wasnt long before we began to realize that Snacks were really getting around.

Within a week of publication, for example, we received a message from a teacher in the Australian Outback who needed help finding materials. We heard from elementary school teachers and university professors. Art teachers were using Snacks, as were shop teachers and math teachers. Sixth-graders at one school were building their own miniature science museum. At another school, an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher found that building Snacks helped her students interact more: Those who understood science best were helping those more adept at building things, and all were getting better at communicating with each other. Teachers from all grade levels and many subject areas were finding useful ideas in the Snackbook.

And it wasnt just teachers who found Snacks useful: Children were bringing Snacks home to their families. Scouts were using Snacks to help get science badges. Snacks were making appearances at science fairs, birthday parties, and impromptu magic shows. In some cases, Snacks even found their way back to the Exploratorium as activities and demonstrations in museum events and programming.

Why republish theSnackbook?

The first edition of the Snackbook, which gathered together 107 science explorations based on Exploratorium exhibits, was published by the Exploratorium in 1991. In 1995, a revised and updated series of four books published by John Wiley & Sons offered many of the Snacks from the original book. Over time, however, the books went out of print and became more and more difficult to find. Materials once easily available were becoming scarce as well (record turntables, for instance, have become very hard to find, as have a variety of other handy toys and gadgets).

To commemorate the Exploratoriums fortieth anniversary, we decided to bring the Snackbook out of retirement and make it available once again. As a testament to the staff members and Teacher Institute teachers who worked so hard to make the first Snackbook a reality, we decided to update the activities, but keep the funky, fun flavor of the originals. So in this new edition, weve left the 1991 version much as it wasfrom the simple line drawings in the Snacks to the telltale fashions of our models.

On the surface, then, this book may look a bit retro, but theres nothing old about it. In addition to redeveloping the Snacks, weve included helpful information, updated the references and resources, added a new section of sound and hearing Snacks, and included charts identifying associated National Science Education Standards. There are helpful indexes, new time estimations, and suggestions for activity extensions.

With the growing importance of science and technology, and the unprecedented challenges being faced by science teachers today, this book offers the practical tools and information teachers need to transcend the limits of their textbooks and make science come alive in the classroom and beyond.

Whats in a Snack?

IMPORTANT SAFETY MESSAGE

BE CAREFUL The experiments in this volume were designed with safety and success in mind. But even the simplest activity or the most common materials can be harmful when mishandled or misused. Use common sense whenever youre exploring or experimenting.

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