Science North's Floating Dock at the Ramsey Lake Boardwalk is currently decommissioned. Reopening is expected in Spring 2025. Please access via Paris or Elizabeth Street.
These downloadable resources contain a lesson plan and curriculum-linked handouts for students who do not have internet access.
Downloadable resources will be made available on the days listed below.
All of the downloadable resources match the classroom videos.
Let’s learn about seeds! What do they need to grow, what are they and how are they different? Students will explore how to sprout seeds with an at-home experiment and get them curious about seeds.
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In this lesson your students will learn that not all liquids are the same and even though corn syrup and oil look similar they are totally different. It is a fun and colourful activity that gets them thinking and engaged, who doesn't love making rainbows?
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Let’s get building! In this lesson students will review the shapes they know and then explore how shapes can be used in different buildings. Students will identify shapes in different structures and will build their own structures using shapes.
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Treat your students to a transformative experience with fun activities in the world of butterflies. In this lesson, students will examine the stages of the lifecycle noting the changes in development as it metamorphoses from a caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly.
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Spring is here! But what does that mean and how do we know that it is spring? In this lesson your students will explore the different characteristics of each season and will learn how humans, plants and animals adapt to the changes in each season.
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What is water and why is it important? Students will learn about the properties of water, how water can move and why this is important for plants. Students will learn this through hands-on activities they can do at home.
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In this lesson, we will get a little messy and dive into the earth. This lesson will engage your student in a hands-on and creative way to explore the earth’s crust – all the way down to its very core! Engaging creativity while tackling big topics, join us for a deep dive!
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In this lesson, your students will learn about weight distribution and how small fragile objects can be used to hold a lot of weight. They may learn a little balance in the mix as well! It is a fun and easy way to engage students and to allow them to safely experiment on their own.
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How do frogs go from being an egg to an adult frog and why do frog eggs look so different from chicken eggs? In this lesson students will learn about what types of animals lay eggs, what different types of eggs look like, and do a hands on activity to explore the frog life cycle.
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To Make Play-Doh:
In this lesson, students will build a birdhouse and learn that animals need air, food, water and shelter to survive.
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Students will learn about the characteristics of living things and be a positive impact on animals by creating their own bird feeder.
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In this lesson, students will investigate how the sun is a primary source of energy for plants and animals. Students will explore the concept of using these sources of energy to make things grow and heat things up!
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Sprouting Seeds:
Solar Oven:
In this lesson, students will learn about different types of energy in their lives and build a catapult and paper airplane launcher which use energy to make them move.
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Catapult 1:
Catapult 2:
Paper Airplane Launcher:
Students will learn the difference between materials, objects and everyday structures and do activities to practice identifying materials, objects and structures.
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Students will explore friction using a simple machine and investigate how different materials create different amounts of friction.
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Students will pretend to be the Earth in a dark room with a lamp as their ‘Sun’. By spinning (rotating on your axis) you create night and day. Walking in a circle around the lamp (revolving around it) creates the year.
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Students will explore the seasonal process of freezing and melting (thawing) water.
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Discover water in the weather and create your own piece of weather with a simple experiment.
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Discover water in the weather and create your own piece of weather with a simple experiment.
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In this lesson, students will explore the difference between an endoskeleton and an exoskeleton, as well as why some animals have one over the other. Students will have the chance to build their own exoskeleton.
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Students will gain an understanding of how animals use camouflage and mimicry as adaptations in their habitat.
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In this lesson, students will learn about liquids and solids. They will mix up different solids and liquids to make a sugar scrub and Play-Doh and see how the properties of the materials change.
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Do They Mix?
Sugar Scrub:
Play-Doh:
In this lesson, students will learn about what objects float by testing and making hypotheses using the scientific method.
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Do you have simple machines around your house? Go on a hunt and try to find examples of simple machines that you and your family use every day to make life easier!
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Let’s learn about simple machines! In this hands-on lesson, we will explore how levers and pulleys work. We will make our own lever and pulley systems to experiment with them and see how they can be used to make work easier.
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How strong is paper? Fold and bend paper to see if different shapes lend more strength to a material. Investigate why columns are an effective building element for strong and stable structures.
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Humans have a knack for taking simple materials and making them stronger, more durable, or more resilient, just by making simple changes to their shape. Find out how you can make changes to strengthen materials that you can find at home!
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Soil is an essential source of life and nutrients for many living things. Students examine the composition and characteristics of soils and set-up an experiment to see how well different soils support plant growth.
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Students will play a sorting game and learn about composting. They will also learn how building soil is a nature-based solution for climate change.
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In this activity, students will explore the life cycle of a pine tree and learn what makes them different from other trees in the forest. After learning about special adaptations that allow certain pine trees to succeed, students can perform an experiment on a pine cone to see how change in temperature will affect the cones.
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In this lesson, students will learn what makes leaves green, and what makes them change colours, especially in the fall. They will understand the basic characteristics of plants and what makes them grow.
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In this lesson, students will learn about contact and non-contact forces by building a toy car and moving it with different forces.
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TOY CAR
Tools:
Body:
Four Wheels:
Axles:
Motors:
Students will learn about the forces found in the environment while experimenting with water.
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Spinning Water Bottle:
Water Wheel:
In this lesson, students will learn about light while conducting three different experiments with materials found at home.
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CD SPECTROMETER
Cereal Box Variation:
Paper Towel Roll Variation:
COLOURED SHADOWS
SIMPLE WATER RAINBOWS
Option One:
Option Two:
In this lesson, students will learn about the properties of sound by building various instruments. Students will learn that sound is caused by vibrations and can be amplified.
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Harmonica:
Harmonica:
Car Horn:
Use household items to investigate how pulley systems can influence the relationships between force and distance as they relate to the concept of work.
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Explore, investigate and dissect objects from home that have gears.
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Rocks and minerals are important resources which we use everyday, even if we don’t realize it. Come and explore some of the ways minerals shape our everyday life.
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Mineral Testing Activity:
Everyday Minerals Activity:
In this lesson, students will learn concepts about rocks and minerals and start building their tool box of knowledge on how to identify each.
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Igneous Activity:
Sedimentary Activity:
Metamorphic Activity:
Bonus Activity:
In this lesson, students will learn about producers, consumers, and decomposers. They will explore types of consumers in an ecosystem (herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores) as well as learn how animal scat is an important clue to identifying an animal's place in the food chain.
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In this activity, students will learn about soil acidity and why different soil is important. They will learn about the Sudbury story, to help explain how humans can have positive and negative effects on habitats and the soil that all living things use. To understand all this, we will look briefly at what habitats are!
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Optional:
Students will learn about the cardiovascular system by identifying the parts of the heart and the lungs, while also identifying their functions and their relation to one another.
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Students will learn the relations between muscle, bones, joints and ligaments while completing the Musculoskeletal System activities.
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In this lesson, students will learn about the three main states of matter: solid, liquid, and gas. They will learn about how matter can change between these states and how this relates to particle theory.
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Ice Cream:
Rock Candy:
Butter:
Students will learn that chemical changes result in the formation of a new substance. Students will explore how to identify a chemical reaction through these experiments.
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Gas Formation:
Turmeric pH Indicator:
Turmeric Reaction:
Do you have what it takes to build the tallest tower? Learn what traits make a tower a tower and put your building skills to the test against internal and external forces.
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For a structure to stand the test of time, it has to be able to resist internal forces that act upon it. Investigate compression and tension forces and test how they affect building materials.
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How to make homemade no-bake play-dough (if you don’t have clay or Play-Doh at home):
In this lesson, students will make a pendulum and watch it swing to investigate potential and kinetic energy.
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In this lesson, students will investigate different types of insulation used to conserve thermal energy.
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In this lesson, students will learn how to use Stellarium Web, a useful web-based planetarium tool. Stellarium can be used to navigate the night sky, as well as find key celestial objects, such as the North Star, planets, the Moon, and the seasonal constellations.
Listed below are the concepts that will be covered:
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In this lesson, students will learn more on how to use Stellarium Web in order to navigate the night sky at different locations, as well as find key celestial objects, like the Milky Way, the Orion Nebula, planets, and the southern constellations.
Listed below are the concepts that will be covered:
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Students will learn about biodiversity and two different types of agriculture; monoculture and polyculture.
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During this lesson, students will learn about biodiversity and ecosystems by looking at the importance of wetlands and indicator animal species within them. Students will also learn how to build their own terrarium, make their own frog calls, and will tackle questions on the importance of wetlands.
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Terrarium Materials:
DIY Frog Call Materials:
*Please follow your city’s rules and avoid searching for materials at public parks or nature areas that are off limits. Please try and find materials at home. If you cannot find materials at home, you can draw and colour a terrarium with all of the correct labels of layers on the handout
In this lesson, students will learn about static electricity by following three hands-on experiments and designing one of their own.
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Students will learn that current electricity is a flow of electrons through a circuit that is in series or in parallel and they will explore the differences between conductors and insulators.
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Conductive and Insulating Play-Doh:
Paper Circuit:
Do you know what air is made of? Why does it act the way it does? Explore some of the properties of air as you try and blow up a balloon in a bottle and build your own balloon rocket!
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Balloon in a Bottle:
Balloon Rockets:
Can you create a paper aircraft using one sheet of uncut paper? How far will it glide? Explore what allows flight to be possible, and apply learning about what elements affect the distance and direction of your glide.
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Investigate how the centre of gravity of a structure affects the structure’s stability and balance, then test your skills at stacking a dramatic overhang that seems to defy gravity.
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Can you create a chair that can hold a load using only paper and tape? Explore what makes a chair strong and stable enough to sit on, and apply learning about what elements lend support, strength, and stability to structures.
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This lesson will reinforce teachings within the realm of biology, chemistry, and earth sciences, by taking a look at the carbon cycle and climate change. It will lay the foundation of how the carbon cycle influences life on Earth, and will tackle questions on climate change and how it occurs in both natural (geological / environmental events) and anthropogenic (human influence) processes.
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This lesson will reinforce teachings within the realm of biology, chemistry, and earth sciences, by taking a look at the albedo effect and climate change. It will lay the foundation of how the reflective power of surfaces influences Earth’s climate, and will tackle questions on cloud formation, glacial melting, rising sea levels, and overall climate change.
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In this lesson, students will investigate interactions within the environment and identify factors that affect the balance between different components of an ecosystem. Students will also assess the impacts of human activities and technologies on the environment, specifically on Lake Sturgeon.
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In this lesson, students will learn about animal adaptations. The focus of adaptations will be on bird beaks specially adapted to their diet. This will help to better understand interactions between biotic elements within the environment and interactions in ecosystems.
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In this lesson, students will learn about the particle theory of matter and how it explains the behaviour of particles at different temperatures.
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Students will learn the difference between a pure substance and a mixture by experimenting with household items.
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Baking Powder Experiment:
Healthy Yummy Baking Powder Experiment:
Students will learn how to calculate the density of objects, and construct and calibrate a homemade hydrometer to measure the relative density of different liquids.
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Object Density:
Hydrometer:
Students will learn about buoyancy and density while completing the Cartesian Diver experiment.
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Note: if using a pen cap, make sure there are no holes on the top. If it does, cover holes with tape or clay.
In physics, the term “work” means something different than the way we use it in everyday life. In this activity, you will learn what we mean when we use the term in physics and will explore how to calculate it.
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Learn about the three classes of levers and investigate how they help us do work by experimenting with your own levers at home.
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Discover how municipalities treat their drinking water and create your own filtration system at home.
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* Activated charcoal or carbon is a form of carbon (chemical) that has lots of holes within it that allows it to react or stick to other chemicals and to remove these from water. It helps to clean water by getting rid of certain chemical impurities found within it.
Understand the geography of a watershed and how the effects humans can have on them.
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In this lesson, students will learn about the cells and investigate functions and processes of plant and animal cells. Students will be able to demonstrate an understanding of the basic structures and functions or organelles within plant and animal cells and their processes.
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In this lesson, students will identify DNA in the nucleus. Cells are the basic unit of life. All cells come from pre-existing cells with the nucleus holding all of the information needed to make every cell in the body. Students will also explore genetic phenology in fingerprint patterns.
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Fingerprints:
Strawberry DNA:
In partnership with the Ontario Government.
Science North and Dynamic Earth are situated on the traditional and ancestral lands of Atikameksheng Anishnawbek and Wahnapitae First Nation in Robinson-Huron Treaty territory, and our Thunder Bay operations are situated on the traditional and ancestral lands of Fort William First Nation in Robinson-Superior Treaty territory. Science North is grateful to work with First Nations across Northern Ontario and we give thanks to the Indigenous Peoples who have cared for this land since time immemorial. We pay respect to their traditions, ways of knowing, and acknowledge their many contributions to innovations in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, past and present. We also recognize the Métis Nation of Ontario for their historic and ongoing contributions. Science North commits to deepening engagement, relationships and partnerships in order to advance truth and reconciliation, honour and reflect Indigenous ways of knowing, grow economic opportunities, and collaborate with Indigenous peoples as partners in order to inspire all people to be engaged with science in the world around them.
