Explore, Play, Discover: Websites, Activities, and More

With polarized light, you can make a stained glass window without gla

Make your own refracting telescope from a pair of reading glasses.

Explore the places, people, tools, and ideas behind the origins of matter, the universe, and life itself.

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The more astronomy changes, the more it stays the same. This series of images juxtaposes ancient and modern study of the celestial bodies.

What is a gear ratio? And how do gears help make the bicycle so efficient?

An introduction to the concepts and theories that contribute to contemporary complexity research.

The Antarctic food web is the simplest on the planet, and krill are at its hub.

Show yourself how a pinch of salt can take the bitter taste away.

Get a taste of how the earth's plates move.

Design and build a musical instrument that responds to changing light.

An evening of wine, food, and talk.

Watch old pennies turn bright and shiny right before your eyes!

Crabeaters have extraordinary teeth, Weddells are downright cute, and leopards are as fierce as their namesake

Download a PDF file with step-by-step instructions for doing your own cow's eye dissection.

Find out why wind resistance is a big drag for bicyclists, and use our calculator to estimate drag for yourself.

Produce some pretty mixed-up music with this online interactive.

Make a crowd-pleasing noisemaker called a sound sandwich, which you can adjust to raise or lower its pitch.

Explore our app and measure the time of your life.

What do you really know about what you see?

We can't predict when an earthquake will occur, but we can avoid some potential disasters.

Try these low-cost, teacher-tested activities for the classroom and the curious.

What geometric shapes can you find on the playground?

Check out top mountain biker, Ruthie Matthes. Learn about frames and materials from a custom bike maker. Try interactive javascripts that calculate braking distances and energy consumption.

How do you stop and steer a bicycle? What forces keep the bicycle from falling over?

Touch supercooled water drops with an ice crystal and trigger them to freeze instantly.

Polarized light passing through sugar, water "rotates" to reveal beautiful colors.

A drop of water makes a fine magnifying lens.

Use dominoes to model a nerve cell's transmission of a signal

See recent articles on polar science.

How are creative investigations sparked? What does a state of inspiration feel like? Can inspiration be transmitted from person to person? Join us for an audio slideshow series that explores the fascinating world of how we work creatively.

A do-it-yourself cartoon kit. It's easy to make pictures move!

Grow spikes of crystals in the sun.

Hear vocal tract models transform the squawk of a duck call into vowel sounds.

Land of ice and people

Visit Las Cuevas Research Station in Belize and the Natural History Museum in London to learn about the study of biodiversity.

Learn how eyes work, and watch a cow's eye dissection. Then follow step-by-step instructions to do a cow's eye dissection yourself.

Learn how eyes work, and watch a cow's eye dissection. Then follow step-by-step instructions to do a cow's eye dissection yourself.

Modelos plásticos huecos del aparato vocal humano convierten el graznido de un pato en sonidos de vocales.

See how TV screens create images from many tiny colored dots of light.