Activities

View a flowchart of all STEMcoding activities here.

Accelerate the Blob

Physical Science

Create a simple game where an object can accelerate in the x and y directions depending on which arrow keys that are pressed

Air Pressure Versus Height: 1. Smartphone Data

Physical Science

Atmospheric Science

Analyze air pressure data from a smartphone or tablet

Air Pressure Versus Height: 2. Balloon Data

Physical Science

Atmospheric Science

Analyze air pressure data from weather balloons

Apollo Moon Landing

Physical Science

Land a rocket on the moon, but be careful not to land too hard!

Are my error bars big or small?

How big are my error bars? Let’s talk about it

Bellicose Birds

Create an angry birds game where the arrow keys control the launch angle

Bird Launcher

Physical Science

Create an angry birds game where the arrow keys control the launch velocity

Bonk.io Clone

Physical Science

If you liked the Pong activity you’ll love this activity which is based on a real game called Bonk.io

Bracket Builder

Computer Science

Think about the probabilities involved and fill out a March Madness bracket

Building Inspector

Take some sensors and explore your building

CO₂ Survey

Use a CO₂ sensor to measure air quality in your building

Conductor Interactive

Physical Science

Electromagnetism

How do electrons move inside of a conductor? Play with a web interactive to find out!

Data Organization in Spreadsheets for Ecologists

Environmental Science

This activity was developed by Data Carpentry and has been adapted for use by STEMcoding.

Earth Day

Atmospheric Science

Environmental Science

We are going to estimate the impact of global warming at your location using a simple cosine function and some climate data.

Error bars and animal sizes

Environmental Science

In some species, the males have a different average size than the females

Escape Velocity and Newtonian Black Holes

That activity explores the behavior of objects like planets or comets interacting with a massive object like the sun.

Exoplanets

Planets exert a gravitational tug on the star that they orbit. Let’s study how this happens!

Fluid Mechanics Interactive

Physical Science

Fluids (which includes liquids and gases) are made up of particles which can be atoms or molecules. Play with a web interactive to see how interacting particles become a fluid

Fractal Puzzle

Download a pdf of a fractal puzzle, print it out on a regular office printer and see if you can put it together!

Good Figures vs. Bad Figures

What makes for a good figure? What makes for a bad figure? Let’s look at some examples and discuss

Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Environmental Science

Why does trash in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch just keep swirling around and around instead of landing on a beach somewhere?

Indexes as a way to explain health risk

How can we help humans make decisions based on data and how to design systems that communicate dangers?

Laser Defense Part 1

Use your knowledge of programming and linear functions to protect an airport from drones. Similar to an old Atari game galled missle command.

Laser Defense Part 2

Use your knowledge of programming, linear functions and trigonometry to protect an airport from drones. Similar to an old Atari game called missile command

Lunar Descent

If you have finished tinkering with the Planetoids lab you can continue with this lab where we will now add gravity to the game! You have a little ship that you must fly…

Magnetic Force

Electromagnetism

You may recall the last programming exercise that involved a particle being accelerated through two charged plates. In this exercise we will add a magnetic field to the…

Mathematical Flower Activity

Let’s make our own flowers using mathematical functions and polar coordinates

Move the Blob

Physical Science

On the internet there are some fun games where you control a circle-looking-thing that you can move around and interact (and potentially destroy or absorb!) other…

Night Sky Simulator

Use some basic facts and equations about stars to randomly generate a realistic-looking starfield

Object Tracker

Physical Science

Now you can record your own direct measurement videos and analyze them with p5.js.

Orbital Motion: Eccentricity

Learn how to measure the eccentricity of an orbit from a gravity simulation

Orbital Motion: Kepler’s Second Law

This activity involves taking the code at the end of the Slingshot with Gravity exercise and doing some experiments with that code to learn more about the special properties…

Ozone layer recovery (Part 1)

Atmospheric Science

Environmental Science

Is the Ozone layer recovering? Let’s look at the data to find out!

Ozone layer recovery (Part 2)

Atmospheric Science

Environmental Science

Let’s look at the Ozone data from the NASA Earth System Data Explorer

Ozone layer recovery (Part 3)

Atmospheric Science

Environmental Science

Let’s talk about what happened in 1987 in Montreal and why it matters for the Ozone layer

Particle Accelerator

Physical Science

Electromagnetism

In this exercise we will make a simulation of a charged particle being accelerated between two plates.

Particle Accelerator with Potential

Physical Science

Electromagnetism

After completing Particle Accelerator, check out this activity where we consider what happens if the “Electric Potential” is kept the same even as we change the Electric…

Pi Day Part 1

Calculate the digits of pi with a random number generator and some code!

Pi Day Part 2

If you completed the Pi day activity and were surprised at how long it took to calculate the digits of π there is good news! There is a better way to calculate the digits of…

Pi Day in Parallel

Computer Science

In an earlier activity, you were able to approximate \(\pi\) to two or three decimal places; however, it took quite a while for the computer to get to that level of precision.

Planetoids

This lab will guide you through coding up a web-based implementation of the classic video game asteroids.

Planetoids with Momentum

In a typical college physics course you will at some point encounter the idea of conservation of momentum. Momentum conservation is very important! In situations where two…

Planetoids with Torque

In this lab we will make the planetoids game more realistic by allowing the space craft to spin around as it would if it were really traveling in space. So in addition to a…

Planetoids with a Spring

Physical Science

Think back to the momentum exercise. The little ship can collide with a “blob” and stick to it. Now imagine that this blob is attached to a spring. Wouldn’t it be…

Pong

Physical Science

In the classic game of Pong, there is a little ball that bounces around off various walls and objects. Importantly, the ball changes direction when it bounces but it never…

Project Mercury Part 1

Physical Science

Mathematician Katherine Johnson is famous for calculating trajectories of America’s first manned space missions for Project Mercury as depicted in the movie Hidden Figures.

Project Mercury Part 2

Mathematician Katherine Johnson is famous for calculating trajectories of America’s first manned space missions for Project Mercury as depicted in the movie Hidden Figures.

QR codes vs. Barcodes

Computer Science

Which contains more information: a QR code, or a barcode? Grab a ruler and find out!

RC Circuits

Electromagnetism

This programming lab is unlike the previous ones in that it involves circuits. Specifically it involves circuits with a battery, a capacitor and one or two resistors.

Repulsion Between Two Charges

Electromagnetism

Ever since scientists realized that the sun is powered by nuclear fusion reactions, people have been thinking about causing these reactions to occur in the laboratory in…

Slingshot With Gravity

Instructions for Slingshot with Gravity
Slingshot with Gravity Code Editor

Solar Cell Data Analysis

Environmental Science

Solar cell data repository (Note: solar2.csv has 9 years of data, which is more than the others)

Solar System Model

Use a spreadsheet to design a model solar system

Sunspots

People have been observing the sun for centuries. Let’s look at the data and see what we can learn!

The Data Cycle

A key habit of scientifically-minded people is the data cycle

VAX game

Play a video game to learn about viruses and epidemics

Wave Interference

Electromagnetism

This programming lab is designed to illustrate the idea of wave interference. This happens because of the principle of “superposition”. For sound waves, this 20 dollar word…

Why we love error bars!

Error bars are great and why we are highly confident about it!