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Community Science

Science Is All Around Us

The Science Museum Group has teamed up with The Reading Agency for a very special science-themed challenge!

Science and technology can be found in everything we do. It isn’t just about inventing—it’s about being inspired to use your imagination and creativity to explore and try out new things. Follow your curiosity to discover the science in your world.

Getting Started

All of our activities have been designed to help explore and discover science and technology in fun and exciting ways.

They contain step-by-step instructions for impressive experiments or challenges that are safe and easy to do in community spaces, outdoor environments or at home. Families, educators and community groups can use them to build excitement and confidence in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) as part of STEM clubs, events, workshops or home learning.

You don’t need lots of equipment or materials to run a STEM club. All of our activities are designed to be carried out using simple, easy-to-find materials—but it doesn’t really matter if you don’t have everything. You can be creative in trying out different materials or can even use these activities to inspire your own ideas.

Activities For Young Children (Under 7s)

All of our activities can be used and adapted for any age group, but some are particularly suited to younger children. More activities for this age group can be explored on our KS1 Resources Archive.

Ear Gongs

Use coat hangers and string to investigate sound, vibrations and materials.

Theme: Sound

Shape detectives

Cut out simple shape templates and look through them to find similar shapes in the real world.

Theme: Maths (shape)

Treasure Hunters app

This game is designed to help players explore the world around us.

Theme: Using science skills

Bottle top shapes

Get creative with geometry by drawing lines on bottle tops and seeing what shapes you can make.

Theme: Maths

Rocket mice

Make a paper mouse fly like a rocket using a milk bottle and some air pressure.

Theme: Forces and motion

Activities For Older Children (7+)

Older children might enjoy these activities.

Engaging activities that can be run as demonstrations, as presenter-led make-a-long sessions or as group activities supported by adults.

Tune Booster

Find ways to boost your smartphone speakers using objects found around the home.

Theme: Sound

Instant Ice Cream

Explore states of matter in the tastiest way—by turning milk into ice cream instantly!

Theme: Materials, states of matter

Wreck your Tech

Instead of throwing unwanted gadgets away, learn how to reuse and recycle items around the house.

Themes: Engineering, using science skills

Kitchen science

Explore science concepts at home with things found in your kitchen!

Themes: Forces and motion, states of matter

Build a Dome

Use straws and strong shapes to make a self-supporting dome.

Themes: Engineering, forces. This activity is great to run as a challenge or group task to build teamwork.

Pinball machine

Build your own pinball machine and challenge your friends!

Themes: Energy, forces and motion

Work together to search for different objects and complete challenges using observation and questioning skills to get thinking and talking about the natural world.

These online games help people recognise how the skills they have and use everyday are useful to STEM. More games can be found on our Games Resources Archive.

Total Darkness game

When the power goes out, it’s time for action in our web-based game, Total Darkness.

Theme: Electricity, using science skills

Launchball

Play your way through 30 obstacle-filled levels, and create your own levels to play and share with friends.

Themes: Electricity, energy, forces and motion, light

Top Tips For Running Activities

  • You don’t need to know all the answers! Science is about encouraging curiosity and using your imagination to explore the world around you. If you don’t know the answer to something there are lots of places online (or in books) to try and find out together. Our activities are also supported by background science and have useful supporting information for adults.
  • You could build activities around a theme. Over the summer holidays why not plan activities around the science ideas found in the Summer Reading Challenge, or even around the themes in a specific book.
  • We recommend that you have a go at doing any activity yourself before running it with a group.
  • For Making activities, the equipment required is for 1 person or a small group (2-3 people) to complete the activity. It can be scaled up to the number of people taking part.
  • Making activities can be run as demonstrations, presenter-led make-a-long sessions or as group activities supported by adults. We have highlighted which activities are great for supporting teamwork.
  • Have extra equipment available, where relevant, to enable people to make and test out new designs.
  • STEM Ambassadors can be used to support STEM Clubs and hands-on STEM activities.

Explore more

Find more activities at our complete resource archive.

Young scientists can learn something new with our selection of interactive books.

You can request STEM Ambassadors to visit your group, or even connect via Skype and email. Find out more about STEM Ambassadors