Phases of the Moon part of Examples
This exercise has students use a simple physical model of the Earth, sun, and moon to understand why the moon changes phases from the perspective of Earthly observers. -

Using Melting Ice to Teach Radiometric Decay part of Quantitative Skills:Activities:Activity Collection
Students are challenged to a Sherlock Holmes-style mystery in which they construct their own decay curves of melting ice to determine time-zero. -

Exploring Radiometric Dating with Dice part of Quantitative Skills:Activities:Activity Collection
An activity in which students use dice to explore radioactive decay and dating and make simple calculations. -

Earthquake Demonstration part of Examples
This demonstration uses an "earthquake machine" constructed from bricks, sand paper, and a winch, to simulate the buildup of elastic strain energy prior to a seismic event and the release ...

Crystallization Demonstration part of Examples
This demonstration uses melted phenyl salicylate to show how crystals nucleate and grow as the temperature of the liquid melt decreases. -

Water Contamination Demonstration part of Examples
Dorothy Merritts, Franklin and Marshall College (dorothy.merritts@fandm.edu) Summary: Misplaced Matter and Water Pollution The drinking water pollution demonstration provides a very simple but ...

Copper Extraction Demonstration part of Examples
Dorothy Merritts and Robert Walter, Franklin and Marshall College (dorothy.merritts@fandm.edu, robert.walter@fandm.edu) Summary This demonstration uses sulfuric acid and crushed copper ore ...

Adhesion, Cohesion, and Surface Tension Demonstration part of Examples
This short (<5-10 minutes) pair of demonstrations uses glass slides with a very thin film of water to demonstrate the cohesive and adhesive forces of water molecules, and a needle floating on ...

Fracture Fundamentals: A Cheesy Analog part of Examples
This activity has students make small cuts in processed cheese food and then apply shear stress perpendicular or parallel to the cuts to see what sort of fracturing will occur. -

Pressure Melting of Ice: While-U-Wait part of Examples
In this demonstration, students get to witness pressure melting and regelation first-hand. A weight is suspended via a thin wire over an ice cube. Over the course of the course of the demonstration, ...