STEM at home

Home learning

We can help make learning at home easy and fun. Supporting lessons children are doing at home, we have a selection of our science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) education activities that can be easily adapted for the home setting.

They offer practical, hands-on activities that encourage tinkering, investigation and problem finding and solving reflecting real-life engineering challenges. All activities use things you can find in your home and have simple to follow instructions.
 

• Teachers, you can set these as challenges for your students learning at home.
• Parents and carers, you can run these activities with your children – no prior subject knowledge or teaching experience needed!

 
Most importantly, the activities are about getting stuck in, making mistakes, asking questions, building, designing, experimenting and having fun! 
We think science, technology, engineering and maths is fun – please share photos of your experiments with us by tagging us on Twitter at @EduRAEng and #STEMatHome. Show us your creations!
 

Spring term projects

Long-term projects that will take 5-10 hours. All projects can be carried out using materials that are easy to find at home such as paper, glue, scissors, cardboard and any other material you can recycle.

Resource	Description
	This is Engineering: Entertainment Explore the essential role that engineers play in the entertainment industry through this STEM resource.  From tracking sports data, exploring the fourth dimension to creating light displays and producing a scene in a horror film.  Complete the challenges in this resource and earn digital STEM badges!

Check out this handy 'This is Engineering: Entertainment' video guide to support students when using this resource.

Summer term projects

Long-term projects that will take 5-10 hours. All projects can be carried out using materials that are easy to find at home such as paper, glue, scissors, cardboard and any other material you can recycle.

Resource

Description

The Great Exhibition at Home Meaningful, structured and creative STEM activities build to an exhibition to be held in bedrooms, kitchens, shoe boxes, gardens across the country. Inspired by the original Great Exhibition of 1851, The Great Exhibition at Home Challenge asks young people to explore how engineers can help protect the planet. The Challenge is suitable for home-working or classroom, for primary or secondary ages, and can be completed alone or with friends.

Watch the Great Exhibition at Home introductory video to learn more about the challenge.

Resource	Description
	Engineering a better world Learn about which continents have the largest area, the most countries and the greatest population. Explore the Sustainable Development Goals and put your tinkering hat onto to create your own solution to a problem that you feel passionate about.

Watch the Engineering a better world video guide to find out more about the different activities and challenges that make up this summer term project.

The Vertical Farm  Explore why it is important for engineers to find creative ways to grow food in different settings, find out how composting works and design and make your own vertical garden to fit in your kitchen, bedroom, corridor or living room.

Watch this video guide to find out more about the Vertical Farm STEM summer project. Visit the YouTube page for more video guides in the Engineering a better world series.

Theme your week

A selection of mini challenges and activities that follow a certain theme. Pick a booklet and try one of the activities every day of the week. 

Resource	Description
	Are we connected? Are we connected? explores engineering through the technology we communicate and connect with. Through enquiry and practical activity learn about the electromagnetic spectrum; 'find your friends' on a map of the UK and Ireland using trilateration; consider the ethics around AI technology; use algorithms to build shapes using tangrams; program a virtual Sphero ball; and use code-breaking skills to decrypt text.
	Maths magic Explore a variety of magical maths activities from multiplication tips to card tricks. Did you know that maths can help you read minds? Using mathematical reasoning (no prior knowledge needed!) find out the shoe size and age of your friends and family members. Learn about the maths behind card tricks use your fingers to do some quick multiplication.
	Power up! Power up! looks at different types of energy, the importance of electricity and how it is generated. It investigates different types of renewable energy sources through a number of hands-on practical activities. Create a circuit to investigate energy transfers using different objects you might have at home, design and build your own Rube Goldberg machine and build a mini wind turbine using recycled material.
	Light saver Light saver investigates how properties of light have been used to develop a new light-based technique to help diagnose and monitor the health of babies' brains. The resource looks at the visible light spectrum, nanometres, behaviour of light and health monitoring. Discover the interactive tool 'Scale of the universe' and compare light waves with double-decker buses, human and a grain of rice. Investigate how light behaves, interacts with our bodies and used in medical engineering through a number of experiments that just need a torch, water, food colouring and gummy bears.

Watch this video guide to find out more about the activities and challenges part of the Power up! resource.

Watch this video guide to find out more about some of the practical challenges and activities in the Light saver resource. This is part of a video series which can be found on YouTube.

Majik water The activities in this booklet are inspired by a project to supply clean drinking water to communities in Kenya. Learn about an innovation that harvests water from the atmosphere and explore this idea at home by building your own mini water cycle.

Watch this video guide to find out more about how to 'theme your week' with Majik Water activities and challenges.

Tabletop experiments

Quick and easy experiments which just need a few materials.

Resource	Description
	Cornflour Simply mixing water with cornflour will mesmerise you and your family! But can you explain what is happening? What could this curious material be used for?
	Milking it Many of the products we buy today are made from or contain plastic. This activity explores how to make plastic using just milk and vinegar with different ideas for applications.
	Pop rockets Apollo 13 is about the third Moon-landing mission.The filmmakers went to great lengths to ensure that the depiction of the launch was technically accurate. How do you get a rocket to take off? This pop rocket challenge will show how a chemical reaction occurs when you mix things together to make cool things happen.
	Magic Drum Originally a vintage toy from the 1830s, a zoetrope applies the same principles filmmakers have used since the start of cinema.  Create your own moving animation using recycled materials, pen and paper.

Watch this video guide to find out how to run your Pop Rockets Table Top experiment. Visit the YouTube page for more video guides in the Engineering in the movies series.

Chemical eruption Disaster movies are the favourite genre of many movie-goers. The genre includes high-profile films such as Dante's Peak and Volcano which all featured devastating volcano eruptions. Complete this challenge to recreate the reaction of a volcano using baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and vinegar (dilute acetic acid).

Watch this video guide to find out how to run your Chemical Eruption Table Top experiment. Visit the YouTube page for more video guides in the Engineering in the movies series.

Magic Drum Originally a vintage toy from the 1830s, a zoetrope applies the same principles filmmakers have used since the start of cinema.  Create your own moving animation using recycled materials, pen and paper.

Watch this video guide to find out how to run your Magic Drum Table Top experiment. Visit the YouTube page for more video guides in the Engineering in the movies series.

Interactive tools

A selection of interactive post-16 tools; however, we encourage younger learners to have a tinker! 

Can you make the scale balance?

Click the image to load Balance 1. 

The above interactive allows you to to adjust the pivot to balance the loads.

Investigate centre of gravity

Click the image to load Bus 1. 

The above interactive allows you to change elements of the bus and see its effects on the tipping angle.

What is happening to the tube at different points of its journey?

Click the image to load SUVAT-underground interactive. 

The above interactive can be used to depict the stages of a journey on a simplified underground system consisting of four stations served by a loop track.  The quantities s, v and a can be shown.  The journey statistics will show details of teh journey.

Post-16

We have a selection of great resources all with interactive activities for post-16 students. You can find these here.