Ages: Middle School

Student Building, room 005

Come check out a wide range of rocks, minerals, and fossils or ask our geologists and paleontologists questions about your rock, mineral, and fossil finds!

Dunn Meadow by the big burr oak
(Student Building room 017 in case of rain)

Guess the age, height, and girth of the large burr oak in Dunn Meadow. Dr. Justin Maxwell will explain what tree rings are and their purpose. Each participant will draw rings on a paper plate and then then guess the age, height and girth on the back of the plate. Afterwards, the participants will learn how to measure each tree ring. There will be prizes for participating in this activity!

Student Building room 015

Explore our world in time and space: search old maps in a digital collection and use geographic mapping tools to travel worldwide. Participants will enjoy learning about geography by finding locations of interest and engaging in mapping games.

Biology Building, South Hallway

Ever wonder what a bird’s migration journey is like? Then stop in and take on the role of a bird and play the migration game. This life size board game walks you through the potential challenges birds face as they migrate.

Student Building, South Lawn, or in the event of rain, hallway outside of room 025

This station will explore zooarchaeology by allowing visitors to use a series of known animal bones to identify unknown specimen from remains that visitors dig out of our mock archaeological dig site.

Student Building Room 025

This station will show visitors some real research projects coming from our lab by looking at the real tools and see the process it takes scientists to make digital and then physical 3-D models of objects that can be used in research or shared around the world.

Student Building room 025

This station will use real skulls to teach how you can tell an animal’s diet, survival strategies, sensory strengths, when they are most active and more just by looking at their skulls.

Student Building, room 025

Take a look at the bones of fox squirrels and grey squirrels and learn about why fox squirrels glow under UV light.

Franklin Hall, lobby

Test your astronomy knowledge by spinning our prize wheel. Everyone’s a winner!

Franklin Hall, lobby

Which is the biggest planet? How many have rings? Color your way through the planets and explore!

Franklin Hall, lobby

Build a scale model of the Earth-Moon system to learn about eclipses!

Franklin Hall, lobby

Questions about eclipses? Now is your chance to ask an astronomer so you’re prepared for the total solar eclipse on Monday, April 8!

Kirkwood Observatory

Tour our historic 12″ refracting telescope! Built in 1901, it is no longer used for research, but it is still regularly used to view planets during open house nights. Now is your chance to see it in daylight!

Kirkwood Observatory, lobby

Biology Building

Explore the skulls of over 40 species of mammals, including humans! Play detective to discover what an animal ate, whether it was a predator, a prey, or both, whether it lived on land or in the water, who is it most closely related to, and perhaps how it died.

Biology Building, room A196

Meet a group of live tortoises and learn about their biology.

Biology Building, room A105

Learn about the life and workcycle of bees as well as the ins and outs of beekeeping.

Biology Building, Atrium

Take a look at the moon and learn plant adaptations to nocturnal pollinators

Biology Building

Learn about the pigmentation of photosynthetic organisms under different light conditions.

Biology Building

Experiment with bioluminescent bacteria and watch them glow!

Biology Building, Atrium

Concerned Scientists at IU and Advocates for Science at IU want to use science to make the world a better place. Legislators consider all sorts of perspectives when deciding if something should be a law: economic, cultural, social, etc. Our job is to make sure they consider the scientific perspective, too! Come learn how you can advocate for science in your community.

Franklin Hall Commons

Explore a variety of tech toys with The Center of Excellence for Women and Technology: Make a 3D doodle using our 3Doodler pen, try out the Turing Tumble: a marble-powered computer you can use to solve logic puzzles, or play around with Ollie the robot!

Student Building, room 138

Talk to IU students and faculty and learn how rivers work. Use our stream table to build and remove dams, alter river banks, input sediment, and see how the river responds. Watch demonstrations in our sediment flume to get an up close view of how water and sediment interact. Why do ripples form on the beach? Why are river cobbles rounded? How much sand and gravel do rivers actually move? This unique view of a river will help to answer all of these questions and more!

Student Building, room 005

Join IU geophysics students and faculty to learn about earthquakes and volcanoes! Make your own earthquake by jumping next to an active seismometer. See the inside of a seismometer to understand how it works. Stop by our interactive display of earthquakes and volcanoes throughout history and around the globe.

Student Building, room 138

Learn how clouds form and how tornadoes develop with these tabletop experiments

Franklin Hall Commons

A fun memory game for all ages. We display various trays with 10-20 objects and have children study them for ~1 minute. Then we remove an item and see if they can guess what is missing.

Franklin Hall Commons

We will play various games that are related to STEM learning (including pattern tangrams, mini puzzle, Blink, etc.)

Franklin Hall Commons

We will administer impulsivity tasks to children (risky driving and gambling tasks)

Franklin Hall Commons

We will compare child’s body measurements (height, length of arms/legs, hand) to an adult body (via a cardboard cutout/ outline of lab member’s body) to show them the comparison

Franklin Hall Commons

We will take a saliva sample from the participant, as well as have them wear a fitness tracker on their wrist. Then, we will have them jump on a mini trampoline and take their measurements again to show them how physical activity and exercise can cause changes in the body. We will also have the saliva appear as different colors to portray different things

Franklin Hall Commons

Color and assemble a neuron necklace to learn how neurons connect and relay information between one another

Franklin Hall Commons

Learn about brain waves and and test your skills racing cars using the power of your mind!

Franklin Hall Commons

Learn how your brain processes visual information and adapts by playing cornhole while wearing visual impairment goggles.

Student Building, room 140

Learn what causes solar eclipses and how different cultures explained these celestial phenomena. Create a paper solar eclipse model that represents one of these traditions.

Maxwell Hall, room 101

Did you know – there are several exciting phenomena to keep an eye out for in the hours leading up to and following a total solar eclipse! Get your scavenger hunt in preparation for the eclipse on Monday, and see if you can spot all of the exciting changes to your environment!

Maxwell Hall, room 101

Build a model of a Dodecahedron, one of the instrumental geometric forms that repeatedly appear in Bradley’s colorful sculptures. Create your own color theory and watch your model come to life!

Maxwell Hall, room 101

Come and get a taste of our exhibition “Unity in Variety: The Works of Morton C. Bradley Jr.” in a variety of dimensions! We will have some original Bradley sculptures, his original slides with stereoscopic viewers, 3D printed models of some sculptures, and sculptures rendered in VR!

Sciences Library, Chemistry Building, room C002

Explore astronomical books and maps from the IU LIbraries’ General Collections for all ages. This includes a wide-range of materials from the sciences to poetry, art, indigenous, folk, and cultural astronomy, and fiction. While browsing, you may obtain an IU Library borrower’s card if you are an in-state resident (need an IN driver’s license or state ID card) or use your IU Crimson Card, and check out (take home to read) our books!

Biology Building Atrium

Learn how light travels through water under different conditions using a light meter. Take real-time measurements of light availability beneath the water surface before, during and after a simulated eclipse. Also, see if you have a steady enough hand to make a rainbow showing which colors get absorbed at different depths..

Maxwell Hall, room 101

You are probably familiar with how Copernicus reimagined the heavens, and placed the Earth in motion around the sun, but did you know that Copernicus relied on the observational data of the Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy? Ptolemy’s system of the heavens placed the Earth in the center, and explained the paths of celestial objects with respect to this stationary Earth, offering the “deferent and epicycle” model with planets spiraling in smaller loops while tracing their major paths. Come learn how Ptolemy’s system explains the heavens, and how his system laid the groundwork for Copernicus. Bring out your creativity by coloring an image of Ptolemy, and drawing his model of the heavens, using a complimentary spirograph! The top coloring contest participants will receive a gift certificate the Chocolate Moose ice cream parlor here in Bloomington!

Maxwell Hall, room 101

“Lights All Askew In the Heavens”, ” Einstein Theory Triumphs”, so it reports in the New York Times on Monday, 11.10.1919, 4 days after the publication of findings obtained by an expedition led by the British physicist Arthur Eddington. In May 1919, he organized an expedition to Sobral in Brazil and the Island of Principe to observe a total solar eclipse. The result formed one of the earliest confirmations of Einstein’s general relativity over the Newtonian law of gravity. Throughout the history and across many cultures, special celestial events like this have functioned not only as a source of entertainment and religious inspiration, but also as a decisive test for astronomical theories and models. We demonstrate why the eclipse constitutes a unique event to test Einstein’s theory of relativity and illustrate how this uniqueness also requires a huge undertaking among scientists.

Geology Building,1001 E 10th St, Bloomington, IN 47408 – room 1011

Part museum, part lab, and part classroom, the Learning Lab is where you can compare thousands of rocks, minerals, and fossils, create art inspired by our collections, explore real-time datasets, and participate in interactive activities. Pull open drawers to discover real specimens and question the world beneath your feet using scientific evidence.

Chemistry Building, Sciences Library, room C002

Experience a selection of hands-on puzzles from the Jerry Slocum Mechanical Puzzle Collection. Try the different types of mechanical puzzles that you can find at IU’s Lilly Library. Mechanical puzzles are hand-held, three-dimensional objects whose pieces move to achieve the solution. These hands-on puzzles represent the many different types of mechanical puzzles that exist. What are hands-on puzzles? As IU’s rare books and materials library, The Lilly Library does not check out items. However, we do have hands-on puzzles in the Slocum Room gallery for visitors to use on new puzzle cart. The Slocum Room is open to the public during library hours. Our Curator of Puzzles will be at the event to answer questions about mechanical puzzles, the Slocum Mechanical Puzzle Collection, and maybe even offer a few hints.

Lindley Hall, room 125

Using an Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) device, children will learn how to use it for communication.

Lindley Hall, room 125

Using American Sign Language (ASL) and the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). children can learn how to sign their name or write it in IPA. We will also have messages written in IPA that children can decode using the IPA chart.

Lindley Hall, room 023

Ever wondered what tools Emergency Medical Services carry on an ambulance? Come take a look at the equipment we have to be prepared for any scenario we may face and learn what we use to save lives!

Lindley Hall, room 023

Learn all about some of today’s real life super heroes and the cool equipment they use to help you breathe! Watch a demonstration on the use of many of the techniques performed by EMTs today.

Lindley Hall, room 023

Have a family member or friend with life-threatening allergies or Asthma? Receive basic training on how to administer Epi and help with the use of an inhaler.

Lindley Hall, room 023

Save a life! Be a hero! Watch a demonstration on how to perform effective CPR and get some hands on action to learn some life saving skills!

Owen Hall Plaza

Preview of Luddy School’s livestream of the total solar eclipse. Safe live public viewing of the Sun in white light and hydrogen-alpha. (live imaging on large screens) Accompanying posters on eclipse + background on imaging.

Owen Hall Plaza

Connect with nature and the scientific process by collecting animal behavior data before, during, and after the eclipse. Come learn how with the free app SolarBird! Engage with the eclipse and make a contribution will have a real impact to science.

Lindley Hall, room 135

Experience the daily life of people who need eyeglasses to see. Come play a fun game of ‘eyeball ball’ to see how many eyeballs you can put in the bucket while wearing refractive eyeglasses. Compete to get on our leader board. The leader at 3 pm wins a prize bag. Must be present to win.

Lindley Hall, room 135

Experience the daily life of people with low vision. Maneuver in, around, over, and under obstacles all while wearing eyeglasses which restrict your field-of-view. Compete to get on our leader board. The leader at 3 pm wins a prize bag. Must be present to win.

Lindley Hall, room 130

Understand how to trick your eye/brain. How our eye and brain work together to enable vision. What we see is built on brain experience and memory. Your brain can be confused if information available is not enough to match a single experience.

Lindley Hall, room 130

Understand how sunglasses work. How cool will it be to work on your monitor without people seeing what is going on your screen? Use the principle behind sunglasses to hide information on your monitor. Wear your cool sunglasses to “un-encrypt” your information.

Lindley Hall, room 135

Experience some of the daily activities of eye doctors. Come learn why some people need to wear eyeglasses, and why eyeglasses help some people and not others. Plus, learn the answer to the age-old question optometrists always ask, “which is better, 1 or 2?”.

Lindley Hall, room 130

Understand why we see what we see. Come see the miracle of light as water bends things that are straight, and maybe even can make them disappear. Understand the fundamental process behind vision. Understand why a stirring rod is visible in air and water, but not in glycerol.

Student Building, room 131

Can you guess the name of a planet in another language? Discover the names of the planets using unique language phrases to see the planets in a new light.

Biology Building, South Hallway

Stop by to test your knowledge of animal behavior! Spin the wheel to receive a question. Try answering the question to win a prize.

Biology Building, South Hallway

Chris Martin, a research scientist and CISAB affiliate at the Indianapolis Zoo has developed computer programs that allow us to learn about chimpanzee and orangutan intelligence. He has taught chimpanzees to do simple tasks, and then measured how quickly they can complete those tasks. Think you can do better? Come find out! At this station, you will learn how to do a simple task, and then race against the clock to see if you can perform the task more quickly than a chimpanzee.

Biology Building, South Hallway

Come make an origami virus or a planet from the solar system as Indiana University students from the START Club are leading a table full of crafts!

Biology Building, West Hallway

Be amazed by the cooperation and warefare that IU researchers have discovered in our local soils and the dangers that lurk within insects.

Biology Building Atrium

Get an inside look at how big of an impact frogs have on our ecosystem!

Biology Building South Hallway

Learn what IU researchers have discovered about how tree swallows compete for nesting sites, and how to provide them with a safe nest box.

Biology Building, South Hallway, Greenhouse

View the variety of plants thriving in the Biology Department Greenhouse. Whether they’re common plants you’ve seen before or rare plants presenting a once in a lifetime opportunity, view them in their beauty through tour offered by Biology Outreach.

Biology Building, East Hallway

DNA is present in all organisms; however you can’t normally see it. Come learn about DNA and extract some from a strawberry before learning how the Wang lab studies how DNA interacts with other DNA in bacteria.

Biology Building, South Hallway

Learn about fruit flies as an important model organism and discover their diverse phenotypes across the globe.

Student Building, room 131

Find the planet’s name in a word puzzle using a different language.

Maxwell Hall, room 101

Make a bracelet using plain, UV, and glow-in-the-dark beads! See how each reacts to the presence and absence of sunlight during the eclipse. Remember: never look directly at the sun! Create a lasting memory of this once-in-a-lifetime solar event through chalk art!

Student Building, room 025

Use lights on dimmers to investigate how our perception of color changes as nighttime falls or we go deeper under water.

Student Building, 1st floor landing

Spin the wheel and answer a science question and win a fabulous piece of ScIU swag! Make and decorate an eclipse pinhole viewer!

Student Building, room 131

Swift and Brilliant Planets: Learn the Arabic names of our celestial neighbors while coloring and labeling your very own Arabic solar map.

Student Building, room 131

Stars of Water and Wood: Lean the Chinese names of our celestial neighbors while coloring and labeling your very own Chinese solar map.

Maxwell Hall, room 101

Indiana is home to many refugees who have come here from Chin State in Burma/Myanmar. In this activity, listen and learn how to say space words like “sun” and “moon” in some of the languages spoken in the community.

Maxwell Hall, room 101

Have you ever done a word search in a language you don’t know? Now’s your chance! Come try one out and learn eclipse words in Chin languages.

Lindley Hall, room 025

Learn how to improve your health. We will offer onsite blood pressure checks.

How much sugar are you really consuming? Get a hands on experience to learn how much sugar you are consuming from popular American drinks.

Real Care Babies: Learn how to care for babies using our simulators.

Swain Hall West, room 113

Discover the marvelous properties of sound in this room. Learn all about how oscillatory motion becomes sound and music. Play with standing waves on strings and a Chladni plate. See the waveform of your voice on a computer. Make your own piper and talking chickens!

Swain Hall West, room 117

The Sun has been a wonderful laboratory for fundamental discoveries as well as a source of technical innovations. Come visit the Sun Room for Discoveries to find out fascinating facts about how the Sun helps advancing studies of Einstein’s general relativity and gravitational lensing, discovering the neutrino oscillation, figuring out the nuclear fusion that powers all stars in the sky, as well as providing clean energy through solar panels.

Swain Hall West, room 108

Explore the powerful forces of electricity and magnetism in this demo room. Our Tesla coil, Van de Graff Generator, and Jacob’s ladder are just a few of the shockingly exciting toys-for-physicists you’ll find.

Swain Hall West, room 118

Discover the secrets of electronics and how it helps our research in physics and beyond. Speak with the physicists and engineers who push the limits of our understanding of the universe.

Swain Hall West, room 150

Ever gazed in awe at a rainbow in the sky or wondered at the marvelous effects of a prism? Through holograms, mirrors, lasers and fiber optics you’ll discover the astonishing properties of light and color.

Swain Hall West, room 109

The field of mechanics is rich with fun and engaging ways to explore linear and rotational motion. Be awed by the astonishing and counter-intuitive properties of ordinary objects when they’re moving, rotating, and oscillating!

Swain Hall West, room 103

Use your brainpower to win great prizes! Pit your skills against others by solving electronic puzzles, performing experiments with gravity, and testing your skill at boat building. Great fun will be had by all!

Swain Hall West, South Lawn

Come play outside where we’ve located the extremely hands-on demos which are too big to stay indoors! Learn about friction on the dry-ice bowling lane! Defy gravity with the Bernoulli Blower! Test your skill with the table-cloth pull! And much more!

In the event of rain, Outdoor Physics will move indoors to Swain Hall West, Grand Entrance Atrium

Student Building, room 005

Learn about dendrochronology (telling time with trees) by exploring slices of tree trunks. Place a flag on the tree ring from the year you were born!

Chemistry Building, room CH041

Did you know that everything around us is made up of teeny tiny building blocks called atoms? Yep, even you and me! Now, imagine having your very own magic toolbox filled with colorful atoms that you can use to build amazing things. That’s what organic chemistry model kits are all about! With these kits, you can snap together atoms like puzzle pieces to create molecules, just like real chemists do. It’s like playing with LEGOs, but with science! So, put on your lab coat and let’s explore the fantastic world of atoms together!

Ever wondered how markers create those vibrant colors? Well, it’s a bit like a secret recipe! In our fun activity, we’ll use markers to color on fabric. Then, we’ll add a drop of rubbing alcohol and watch the main color spread into many colors as the ink separates. It’s like a mini science experiment right before your eyes! And guess what? You can take home your own tie-dye square as a special keepsake. So, grab your markers and let’s dive into the colorful world of science and art. Hurry, while supplies last!

Chemistry Building, room CH041

Learn about light microscopy and examine nature up close!

Chemistry Building, room CH045

Household products and chemistry come together to produce fun, playable science. Science that you can do at home! Gooey slime and Lava Lamps become your new sciency friends!

Chemistry Building, room CH045

Have you ever wondered how the food you eat gets digested within a couple of hours? And how do you get energy after eating? Well, the simplest answer is we get energy when the food gets digested within the stomach. But how? The stomach contains many important enzymes (pepsin, trypsin, etc) which are essential for digestion and act as catalysts to break down food faster and provide energy. Enzymes are versatile catalysts which are commonly utilized by nature (plants, animals, bacteria, etc). Enzymes have unique shapes and sizes which help them to catalyze chemical reactions in a specific and selective manner. For example, enzymes can combine two smaller molecules and produce another big molecule with different properties efficiently (which our group will show using a simple demo named a paper-clip experiment). Moreover, enzymes can also break one big molecule into many smaller molecules (similarly as in our stomach) and release energy (we will show another demo explaining how catalase enzyme helps in breaking down one molecule in an elephant toothpaste experiment). Similarly, the enzyme (Bromelain) present in pineapple helps in the degradation of gelatin polymer which we will show as a demo where we will show the difference in degradation using tabletop Bromelain powder vs Bromelain present in fresh pineapple.

Chemistry Building, room CH047

In this students will learn about the refraction. And in magnifying minds they will learn the importance of scale and understand that.

Chemistry Building, room CH049

Magic sand: stays dry under the water. Play with hands and spoons in a bowl of water and making sand castle in the beaker with water.
Drawing on water (paper marbling): dyes stay on water surface and gets transferred to cloth to create patterns.
Acoustic Levitator and Magnets

Swain Hall West, room 217

Learn how to assemble pre-cut pieces of paper into beautiful objects with lots of symmetries. You can take home what you build!

Swain Hall West, room 218

Experiment with mirrors and learn how to bend light to hit a target avoiding obstacles

Swain Hall West, room 218

Solve a wide variety of puzzles. You will even learn how to build one using light switch plates and strings. Good for ages 7 and up. Parents will be challenged too!

Chemistry Building, room CH027

The fascinating world of elctrochemistry at your finger tips. See as pennies become silver, copper “turns” into silver all with the addtion of a little chemistry. Oxidation-Reduction reactions come to life with color changes, a little heat, and LOTS of fun.

Chemistry Building, room CH027

Using a CD, a piece of paper, and some tape, visitors can build their own spectrometers! These instruments help scientists see all the colors that the light from different light sources (like light bulbs and fire) are made of. Visitors will also have the opportunity to use a real spectrometer to observe and analyze a variety of light sources!

Chemistry Building, room CH046

Come and learn about the connections between your daily brushing and the IU Department of chemistry. Meet scientists who work and love to talk about YOUR dental health.

Student Building, room 150

Learn how to use an astrolabe, the tool that medieval astronomers used to track the movement of heavenly bodies