August 6, 2015
by: Priscilla Robinson
Recently, on a warm summer evening, I did something special with my three-year-old grandson. At 8 PM, little Henry was still full of energy, having had a late nap. I decided to use that to my advantage. We ventured outside to enjoy the setting sun with the twilight of oncoming darkness. My bag was packed with a blanket, some bottles of water, two headlamps, and a few special summer science surprises from Educational Innovations. Henry was delighted to have an outing instead of being hustled up to bed, so off we went—down the block to our local elementary schoolyard.
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Elementary level, experiments, High School level, Middle School level, Physics | Tagged: Educational Innovations, energy, experiments, fun experiments, hands-on activity, homeschool, parent friendly, PBL, phenomenon based learning, phenomenon-based science, science, summer camp, variables | 
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Posted by Donna Giachetti
April 28, 2015
We have assembled a brilliant array of electricity products to help you explain the fundamentals of electricity to your students. We’ve got everything from Electric Paint to Plasma Globes.
Here’s what some of our customers are saying about our some of their favorite EI electricity teaching tools.
If you have a favorite Educational Innovations product, let us know! We’d love to share your review with your fellow teachers and science lovers.
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Leave a Comment » | College level, electricity, Elementary level, energy, High School level, Middle School level | Tagged: customer, discrepant event, electricity, energy, experiments, fun experiments, hands-on activity, homeschool, parent friendly, PBL, phenomenon based learning, phenomenon-based science, reviews, science, variables | Permalink
Posted by Donna Giachetti
April 8, 2015
By: Donna Giachetti
A Lesson on Electricity… with Elmo
Even babies understand the difference between ON and OFF. After mastering peek-a-boo, turning a switch on and off is one of a toddler’s favorite games. What will happen if I press here? Where did that light come from? Who made that noise? Something nearly always happens when a button is pushed, and it leaves children wanting to know more. At least that’s how it went in my house. My son wasn’t satisfied squeezing Tickle Me Elmo’s belly to hear the little guy giggle. He soon figured out how to switch Elmo on-off-on-off so rapidly that the poor fuzzball appeared to have a bad case of the hiccups.
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Posted by Donna Giachetti
January 29, 2015
by: Tami O’Connor
As an elementary and middle school teacher and Girl Scout leader, I had a bag of tricks that I dug into frequently… One of my favorites was the gyrocopter. I always kept a template in my files and when teaching about air, friction, forces symmetry or flight, out it came. It was simple enough for kindergarten students to build, yet complex enough to hold the attention of eighth graders as we discussed principles of drag, the characteristics of flight or even just isolating variables in an experiment.
Nearly 400 years before the invention of the helicopter, Leonardo da Vinci sketched out a machine designed to compress air in order to obtain flight. When Igor Sikorsky designed the first successful helicopter in the late 1930’s, da Vinci’s spinning wing was his inspiration.
Today, you can easily build gyrocopters with your students to explore different designs and variables.
How Does a Gyrocopter Work?
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2 Comments | Elementary level, experiments, Middle School level, Physics | Tagged: flight, helicopters, homeschool, parent friendly, PBL, phenomenon based learning, phenomenon-based science, science, science lesson, variables | Permalink
Posted by Tami O'Connor
June 6, 2013
by: Jim Fiddes
I recently used this extension of the balloon-CD hovercraft plans in Norm Barstow’s blog for a middle school physical science lab, but it could be easily adapted for a high school IPS class. It works as inquiry for higher-achieving students, but just as well with more detailed direction, for regular classes.
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Posted by Tami O'Connor
