Enjoy hands-on learning this Halloween! We hope these STEM activities make for a fun-filled October.
Pumpkin STEM
Pumpkins are a great manipulative for math and science exploration, and there are many engaging and fun opportunities using pumpkins to teach STEM. The Homeschool Scientist offers 30 Pumpkin STEM Activities, and PITSCO Education has a variety of fantastic fall pumpkin activities.
Halloween Math Worksheets
If you’re looking for a Halloween themed activity for your high school math students, try using Halloween themed math problems. This is a great way to review important concepts while also getting into the Halloween spirit. You could even have a Halloween math contest with prizes for the students who get the most correct answers. Check out the Halloween Math Worksheets page at Math-Drills.com. In addition, these free Halloween worksheets cover a variety math concepts from arithmetic to geometry including word problems, Cartesian coordinates, and graphing.
Halloween Engineering Activity: Build a Bone Bridge
Build a bridge of bones this Halloween! All you need is a box of Q-Tips (“bones”), craft sticks, and binding materials like string, twist ties, or pipe cleaners. Build a bridge that can hold weight or see who can make the longest bridge without touching the ground.
Spooky Sounds
What sounds do you associate with Halloween movies or Halloween music? What makes the sounds spooky, scary, or eerie? When you watch movies, what kinds of music do you hear, and how does the music fit what is happening in the movie? Are there patterns of instruments, pitch, or tempo that accompany certain scenes in movies? How does it intensify the emotions in scenes so that you do not just jump when that big hairy spider comes around the corner, you scream!
One of the things that makes a haunted house or a mysterious movie so eerie is the soundtrack that goes along with it—all the noises orchestrated to raise the hair on your arms, make you shiver and leave you with little doubt that there are things unknown lurking about. In this science activity you will investigate what goes into the composition of a perfect creepy soundtrack. Pull out your favorite Halloween movies or playlists, put on your listening ears, and get ready to really tune in to the sounds of the movie or music through this science activity at Scientific American called Spooky Science: The Sounds of Halloween.
Candy Corn Experiment
In this candy corn experiment from The Homeschool Scientist, you will investigate whether the sugar and other ingredients in candy corn affect the pH level and temperature of a solution. In this experiment, the independent variable will be the liquids you choose to use (vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, isopropyl alcohol, Dawn dishwashing liquid, juice, hot water, etc.).
What’s Your Biggest Fear?
Halloween is considered the spooky season, and while skeletons and haunted houses can be scary, it’s different things that keep people up at night. What really gets your heart beating faster, palms sweaty, and mouth dry with debilitating fright? Spiders? Heights? Rats? Ghosts? Public speaking? The fear of failure? Take a poll! Ask your friends and family, and chart their answers on a graph. What are most people scared of? Let us know what you find out. Leave a comment!