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Find Next Gen STEM learning opportunities for students in multiple settings - in school, afterschool programs informal institutions like museums and science centers, and at home.

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Discover More STEM Topics From NASA

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NASA offers a wide array of unique experiences for educators designed to engage K-12 students nationwide in the agency's missions, people, and resources.

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Sydney Opera House  -Artificial reef program

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Sydney Opera House  -Artificial reef program

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Explore 3D models

The artificial reef modules are installed around the Sydney Opera House, providing habitat for the marine life of Sydney Harbour. They are constructed of steel and concrete, creating structure for plants and animals to grow on, and enclosed spaces for mobile organisms to use as shelter or ambush sites.

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The artificial reef modules are installed around the Sydney Opera House, providing habitat for the marine life of Sydney Harbour. They are constructed of steel and concrete, creating structure for plants and animals to grow on, and enclosed spaces for mobile organisms to use as shelter or ambush sites.

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Has the HSC hub made a difference for you this year? Complete our survey . Closes Friday 27th November.

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"The work of science teachers is crucially important to our young people and to the future of the nation. It's no secret that science and maths, engineering and digital skills are in short supply and in high demand. We need to encourage more young people to take this path. Teachers are so often the source of that early spark of excitement about discovery that inspires young people to pursue a scientific career and turn their minds to the process of discovery. I know how important teachers were to me when I was growing up; without their encouragement my path would have been very different. Of course, the best way to get hooked on science is to get experimenting in the lab and the more of this we can do in our schools, the better. To that end, I have no doubt this website will be a really valuable resource."
Dr Cathy Foley, Australia's Chief Scientist

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"The work of science teachers is crucially important to our young people and to the future of the nation. It's no secret that science and maths, engineering and digital skills are in short supply and in high demand. We need to encourage more young people to take this path.

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When pioneering scientist Vera Rubin was a little girl in the 1930s, she longed to be an astronomer but had never met a sole person of that vocation in real life. Decades later, after she broke the glass ceiling in astronomy by becoming the first woman permitted to observe at the prestigious Palomar Observatory and went on to discover dark matter, Rubin reflected: "It never occurred to me that I couldn't be an astronomer." She traced the firmness of that conviction to a children's book about Maria Mitchell - America's first woman astronomer and a lifelong champion of women in science - which had expanded her horizon of possibility and seeded the idea that she, a little girl amid a culture impoverished of such role models, could one day become an astronomer. Rubin did become one - one of the greatest ones who ever lived - whilst raising three children of her own, all of whom grew up to earn doctorates in science, including a daughter who became an astronomer herself. That Rubin has not yet been awarded the Nobel Prize is both a travesty and a testament to our culture's long history of inequality in science.

Rubin is one of the fifty extraordinary women whom artist and author Rachel Ignotofsky celebrates in Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World (public library) - an illustrated homage to some of the most influential and inspiring women in STEM since long before we acronymized the conquest of curiosity through discovery and invention, ranging from the ancient astronomer, mathematician, and philosopher Hypatia in the fourth century to Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani, born in 1977.

True as it may be that being an outsider is an advantage in science and life, modeling furnishes young hearts with the assurance that people who are in some way like them can belong and shine in fields comprised primarily of people drastically unlike them. It is this ethos that Igontofsky embraces by being deliberate in ensuring that the scientists included come from a vast variety of ethnic backgrounds, nationalities, orientations, and cultural traditions.

There are the expected trailblazers who have stood as beacons of possibility for decades, even centuries: Ada Lovelace, who became the world's first de facto computer programmer; Marie Curie, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and to this day the only person awarded a Nobel in two different sciences; Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who once elicited the exclamation "Miss Bell, you have made the greatest astronomical discovery of the twentieth century!" (and was subsequently excluded from the Nobel she deserved); Maria Sybilla Merian, the 17th-century German naturalist whose studies of butterfly metamorphosis revolutionized entomology and natural history illustration; and Jane Goodall - another pioneer who turned her childhood dream into reality against tremendous odds and went on to do more for the understanding of nonhuman consciousness than any scientist before or since.

But there are also lesser-known and no less extraordinary engineers, physicists, physicians, chemists, geneticists, geologists, inventors, biologists, and scientists of all stripes, united by the possession of insatiable curiosity, a singular genius for transmuting it into knowledge, and two X chromosomes.

Woven throughout the micro-biographies are visual factoids like a timeline of notable events in the history of women in science, statistics about the alarming gender gap in STEM fields, and a visual taxonomy of lab tools.

In the introduction, Ignotofsky captures just what women in science have been up against, as recently as mere decades ago, even though science itself is millennia old:

Nothing says trouble like a woman in pants. That was the attitude in the 1930s, anyway; when Barbara McClintock wore slacks at the University of Missouri, it was considered scandalous. Even worse, she was feisty, direct, incredibly smart, and twice as sharp as most of her male colleagues. She did things her way to get the best results, even if it meant working late with her students, who were breaking curfew. If you think these seem like good qualities for scientist, then you are right. But back then, these weren't necessarily considered good qualities in a woman. Her intelligence, her self-confidence, her willingness to break rules, and of course her pants were all considered shocking!

Barbara had already made her mark on the field of genetics with her groundbreaking work at Cornell University, mapping chromosomes using corn. This work is still important in scientific history. Yet while working at the University of Missouri Barbara was seen as bold and unladylike. The faculty excluded her from meetings and gave her little support with her research. When she found out they would fire her if she got married and there was no possibility of promotion, she decided she had had enough.

Risking her entire career, she packed her bags. With no plan, except an unwillingness to compromise her worth, Barbara went off to find her dream job. This decision would allow her to joyously research all day and eventually make the discovery of jumping genes. This discovery would win her a Nobel Prize and forever change how we view genetics.

Barbara McClintock's story is not unique. As long as humanity has asked questions about our world, men and women have looked to the stars, under rocks, and through microscopes to find the answers. Although both men and women have the same thirst for knowledge, women have not always been given the same opportunities to explore the answers.

Here, I'm reminded of how Maria Mitchell - the first person to discover a telescopic comet, which earned her unanimous election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as the first woman ever admitted - earned three honorary degrees, even though she was never allowed to set foot in a university as a student. Ignotofsky captures the heartbreaking inequalities that only amplify the impressiveness of these women's feats:

When women finally began gaining wider access to higher education, there was usually a catch. Often they would be given no space to work, no funding, and no recognition. Not allowed to enter the university building because of her gender, Lise Meitner did her radiochemistry experiments in a dank basement. Without funding for a lab, physicist and chemist Marie Curie handled dangerous radioactive elements in a tiny, dusty shed. After making one of the most important discoveries in the history of astronomy, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin still got little recognition, and for decades her gender limited her to work as a technical assistant. Creativity, persistence, and a love of discovery were the greatest tools these women had.

Complement the marvelous Women in Science with more creative courage for young hearts with these favorite picture-book biographies of great artists, writers, and scientists, then revisit the story of how Maria Mitchell (alas, only a sidebar mention in the book) paved the way for women in science and Adrienne Rich's touching tribute to Marie Curie.
Illustrations © Rachel Ignotofsky, courtesy of Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

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An Illustrated Celebration of Trailblazing Women in Science

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When pioneering scientist Vera Rubin was a little girl in the 1930s, she longed to be an astronomer but had never met a sole person of that vocation in real life.

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teaching resources

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Forbes magazine

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More than a century ago, epidemiologist Dr. Thomas Tuttle prescribed face masks and social distancing to slow the influenza pandemic. He made a lot of enemies-but it worked.

IN January 1919, Washington's health commissioner urged legislators in the state capital, Olympia, to enforce strict measures against the spread of the Spanish flu, which had just ended a deadly second wave in America. Recommended restrictions included banning dances and other social gatherings, as well as limits on how many people could attend public meetings and how far apart they should sit from one another. Both the city and county voted against those measures. In response, the commissioner sought to get the State Board of Health to enforce its police powers against the county.

Instead, he lost his job.

A public health official getting fired over unpopular social distancing measures during a pandemic has an eerie echo today, when business leaders and politicians are chafing against restrictions urged by authorities to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. But it was precisely these restrictions that enabled Seattle and other cities in Washington to protect themselves from the Spanish flu-and similar actions helped Kansas abate another influenza wave in the fall of 1919.

At the center of public health efforts in both states was a practical, plainspoken, bespectacled scientist: Dr. Thomas Dyer Tuttle, who became a powerful, if polarizing, figure in the fight against the Spanish flu-not unlike Dr. Anthony Fauci is perceived today, in the battle against COVID-19.

Apart from the passing physical resemblance, both Dr. Tuttle and Dr. Fauci fought global pandemics late in their long public health careers and the perilous balance of science and sociology that entails. Both men attended Ivy League medical schools. Both were commissioned officers in the United States Public Health Service. And both had experience fighting previous epidemics. Fauci first came to prominence in the 1980s as the leading HIV/AIDS researcher for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. For Tuttle, it was a resurgence of smallpox at the turn of the 20th century.

Tuttle was born in Fulton, Missouri, in 1869. He was the son of a grocer who had married into wealth-his mother's family, according to a local history, had a home encompassing about a quarter of a city block. He received his bachelor's degree at local Westminster College (where Winston Churchill would deliver his famous "Iron Curtain" speech some 56 years after Dr. Tuttle had graduated). Tuttle then moved to New York City in 1889 to obtain a medical degree at what was then known as Columbia College.

During that first year of medical school, he unwittingly found himself in the midst of one of the deadliest flu pandemics, the so-called "Russian flu," which had killed tens of thousands in Europe that fall and arrived in New York in December. That flu would end up causing more than 2,500 deaths in New York before subsiding in February 1890.

Battle Ready in 1918: Soldiers under quarantine in Washington state during the Spanish flu and Red Cross volunteers sewing masks. (Washington State Historical Society, Gregg Courtwright Collection)

After graduating from Columbia in 1892, Tuttle worked at New York's Mount Sinai hospital. He later returned to Missouri, where he married his wife, Lucile, in 1896. A few years later, the couple moved to Montana where Tuttle pursued a medical career and became Secretary and Executive Officer of the state's Board of Health in 1903.

It was in this role that Dr. Tuttle first learned to value science over unpopular public opinion. In 1909, Tuttle made headlines in local Montana newspapers-ironically, by coming out against quarantines-much to the consternation of the public. Smallpox had ravaged the population in the early 1900s, but Dr. Tuttle's reasoning behind the order was that lifting quarantines would encourage people to vaccinate. (In 1905, the Supreme Court case Jacobson v. Massachusetts upheld states' authority to require smallpox vaccinations in the interest of public health.) Tuttle and the state's Board of Health had promoted mandatory smallpox vaccinations by offering them free of charge and by circulating a Tuttle-penned pamphlet touting their benefits. Those instructions included sharp words for the anti-vaxxers of the day:

"It is the firm belief of the author that the most effectual way to rid this country of smallpox would be to give a few months warning, in order that all might have time to be successfully vaccinated," Dr. Tuttle wrote. "And then let any cases of smallpox that might appear go at large, without disinfection, so that those who would not be vaccinated might have the disease and be done with it. Such a move would result in a radical 'change of heart' on the part of many, if not all, 'anti-vaccinationists.'"

In 1915, with smallpox under control in America, Dr. Tuttle accepted a new position as health commissioner of Washington. Three years later, in July 1918, the Spanish flu reached the state. The first set of infections hit the Army's Camp Lewis, where more than 300 cases were reported. As summer went on, the number of cases appeared to decline and the "alarm went down," says historian Gwen Whiting.

But the numbers started to creep up again in September, and public health officials became concerned about a second wave. The state's Board of Health met in late September specifically to discuss concerns over the flu, and after the meeting Tuttle spoke to a newspaper to warn citizens that the flu would return. Because of limitations on the state Board of Health's authority, Dr. Tuttle wasn't able to enforce many orders until November, says Whiting. But he did use his position to encourage local officials to announce stringent measures to contain the pandemic in early October.

Dr. Tuttle, who lived in Seattle, worked closely with the local health commissioner, Dr. J.S. McBride, to manage the trajectory of flu cases. Alarmed by hundreds of hospitalized cases of flu in the nearby Naval training station, Tuttle declared that the Spanish flu had arrived in the city. Both McBride and Seattle's mayor, Ole Hanson, acted quickly in response-taking advice from Dr. Tuttle.

Thoughts and Prayers: After closing Seattle's churches in 1918, Mayor Ole Hanson said, "Religion which won't keep for two weeks is not worth having."

On October 5, 1918, Mayor Hanson laid out his measures to curb the epidemic in Seattle. "He closed the churches. He shut down public places. They even raised fines for spitting on the sidewalk," explains Whiting. "You could be fined if you weren't wearing a mask to get on the streetcar. All of these strict restrictions were put into place in Seattle. And other cities followed suit."

Meanwhile, Dr. Tuttle took to the newspapers to spread health advice- sending letters to the press statewide, proclaiming that the flu might be prevented from becoming epidemic with "the earnest, conscientious and intelligent help of every citizen of the State" following a now-familiar set of precautions: Don't sneeze or cough in your hands, keep away from crowds, and stay at home if you have any symptoms.

The Cold War: To warn Kansans of the perils of another Spanish flu wave, Dr. Tuttle took his message to the local papers.

As with the COVID-19 pandemic, the response to Spanish flu in Seattle, Spokane and other Washington cities had parallels across the country. New York, St. Louis and Los Angeles also saw success through the use of austere public health measures, while cities such as San Francisco and Philadelphia were less restrictive and saw increased flu deaths as a result. But those higher mortality rates are also due, in part, because the severe measures simply weren't popular. Even in Seattle, "there was a lot of protest" over public health restrictions, says Whiting.

Although Dr. Tuttle gave advice to local authorities behind the scenes, he tended to act more pragmatically as the flu progressed. He never issued a statewide lockdown, for example, because the U.S. Surgeon General had advised against it. He also lifted a statewide order to wear masks in public after Armistice Day in November 1918-partly because citizens weren't adhering to it anyway. The end of World War I also saw an easing of health restrictions in Seattle. But it came at a cost. In early December, the flu came back. Although this time, rather than ban public gatherings, people exposed to influenza were ordered to remain in their homes.

That month, Dr. Tuttle traveled to Chicago for a national conference of the American Public Health Association dedicated to combating the disease, and that meeting appears to have hardened his resolve to be even more aggressive. Tuttle may have been pragmatic earlier in the epidemic, but he began to be more publicly exasperated at the lack of enforcement of public health laws. Tuttle's frustrations pepper reports he prepared after this period, and he was later described by a contemporary as belonging "to that old-fashioned school of citizens who believe laws and regulations were made to be enforced."

Such a resolute attitude likely cut short his position as health commissioner in Washington. The restrictions Dr. Tuttle was trying to enforce were "pretty controversial ideas at the time," says Whiting, "so he made a lot of enemies."

After being ousted from Washington, Dr. Tuttle moved to Kansas, where he accepted a position as Epidemiologist for the State Board of Health. In that role, he began to fear another influenza epidemic would appear in the state by the fall of 1919 and minced no words in encouraging the public to follow public health guidelines.

"Those who buried their dear ones last winter should certainly lend every effort to prevent others facing a similar loss," Dr. Tuttle wrote in a Topeka paper on September 11, 1919. He also wrote letters to county health commissioners, urging strict enforcement of quarantines. Though not considered part of the Spanish flu pandemic, Kansas did see a high level of influenza cases in the winter of 1919-20, and Dr. Tuttle did his best to ensure local communities were prepared.

Despite the work he had done to save lives in Washington and Kansas, it's clear that Tuttle was pessimistic about his country's ability to prepare for the next pandemic. "As a matter of fact, we know about as little with regard to the etiology and epidemiology of influenza today as we knew two years ago," he wrote in one report, "and owing to the inclination of our government (city, county, state and national) to provide funds for operating only when sickness is present, and to absolutely cut off any support whatsoever for the study of the epidemiology of the disease after an epidemic has passed, renders it very probable that we will meet our next epidemic (probably 20 or 30 years hence) with as little knowledge of the true nature of the disease as we had when we confronted the epidemic in the fall of 1918."

Two years later, Tuttle resigned his role in Kansas, citing a need for a bigger salary so he could afford to pay for his son's college education. In its biennial report, the Board of Health lamented his departure and urged that the legislature increase the salary for the role in order to secure "a man of the quality and training Kansas desires."

His next job took Dr. Tuttle back to Montana to start a veterans hospital at Fort Harrison, which still exists today. He later moved to Chicago to practice medicine. In 1933, he and his wife retired to San Diego, where Dr. Tuttle spent his golden years gardening-on the 1940 census, he wryly noted his occupation as "orchidist" with an income of zero-before passing away in 1942.

Second Opinions: Like Dr. Tuttle's stringent measures, Dr. Fauci's guidelines haven't always been popular. (Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Nearly 80 years after Dr. Tuttle's death, his legacy in fighting pandemics lives on, which might have come as a surprise to him, given the pessimism he expressed in his lifetime. In 2009, a group of researchers wrote a paper comparing existing CDC guidelines on managing pandemics to those developed during the Spanish flu. The paper noted that of all the recommendations, measures Dr. Tuttle promoted-encouraging the closing of public spaces and social distancing-were still relevant in fighting epidemics today. The report even cited findings from the 1918 December meeting Dr. Tuttle attended before insisting on the draconian health measures that got him fired.

One of the coauthors of that 2009 paper?

Dr. Anthony Fauci.

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IN January 1919, Washington's health commissioner urged legislators in the state capital, Olympia, to enforce strict measures against the spread of the Spanish flu, which had just ended a deadly second wave in America. Recommended restrictions included banning dances and other social gatherings, as well as limits on how many people could attend public meetings and how far apart they should sit from one another.

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The Photographic Periodic Table of the Elements

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The definitive online periodic table reference site including technical data, and photographs and descriptions of thousands of samples of the chemical elements.

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No matter if you enjoy taking or just watching images of space, NASA has a treat for you. They have made their entire collection of images, sounds, and video available and publicly searchable online. It's 140,000 photos and other resources available for you to see, or even download and use it any way you like.

You can type in the term you want to search for and browse through the database of stunning images of outer space. Additionally, there are also images of astronauts, rocket launches, events at NASA and other interesting stuff. What's also interesting is that almost every image comes with the EXIF data, which could be useful for astrophotography enthusiasts.

When you browse through the gallery, you can choose to see images, videos or audio. Another cool feature I noticed is that you can narrow down the results by the year. Of course, I used some of my time today to browse through the gallery, and here are some of the space photos you can find:

What I love about NASA is that they make interesting content for average Internet users. They make us feel closer and more familiar with their work and with the secrets of the outer space. For instance, they recently launched a GIPHY account full of awesome animated gifs. It's also great that photography is an important part of their missions, and so it was even before "pics or it didn't happen" became the rule. The vast media library they have now published is available to everyone, free of charge and free of copyright. Therefore, you can take a peek at the fascinating mysteries of space, check out what it's like inside NASA's premises, or download the images to make something awesome from them. Either way, you'll enjoy it.

[ NASA Image and Video Gallery via SLR Lounge; Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech]

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NASA makes their entire media library publicly accessible and copyright free

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No matter if you enjoy taking or just watching images of space, NASA has a treat for you. They have made their entire collection of images, sounds, and video available and publicly searchable online. It's 140,000 photos and other resources available for you to see, or even download and use it any way you like.

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Activities and Resources for house-bound kids

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Schools worldwide have closed in response to COVID-19, leaving parents and caregivers scrambling to find daily activities for their children.

Today (April 3) Live Science updated our list of lessons, games, science experiments, live demonstrations and virtual tours, to help you find options that are educational, creative and entertaining during this uncertain period of self-isolation, social distancing and quarantine.

Some of today's highlights include immersive virtual dives at marine sanctuaries; making dinosaur shadow puppets; behind-the-scenes glimpses and digital content from Shakespeare's Globe Theater; and a live butterfly camera.
Related: The ultimate kids' guide to the new coronavirus
New today (April 3)

Visit with butterflies from Central, South and North America in the San Diego Zoo's Hidden Jungle greenhouse, through their butterfly cam livestream. You can also find instructions for starting your own butterfly garden.

New York City-based bookworms can use their New York Public Library (NYPL) cards to check out any of 300,000 e-books in the NYPL collection, via the library's SimplyE app, available for iOS and Android.

Make dinosaur shadow puppets with templates from the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County, and stage your own stories about these extinct giants.

Tour marine sanctuaries and ocean habitats with a collection of virtual dives from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Dive into colorful coral reefs, swim with seals, or explore a shipwreck, sanctuary views can be seen on a personal computer or a smartphone.

Theater-lovers can browse a range of classroom activities from the legendary Shakespeare's Globe theater. Weekly blogs and other resources introduce the cast and crew behind a new production of "Macbeth," created especially for young audiences.

San Francisco's Exploratorium offers activities to help kids understand the science behind viruses, how they affect the human body, and how we can protect ourselves against infection.

How do butterflies eat? What's the difference between frogs and toads? The Nature Museum in Chicago has videos and activities to acquaint kids with the natural world and to inspire their curiosity about the plants and animals in their own backyards.

Resources from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute introduce students to the impacts of climate change on marine habitats; explain the adaptations of animals that live in the deep sea; and present the challenges faced by ecosystems invaded by nonnative species, such as the so-called zombie shrimp.

Head of the class

Scholastic launched a Learn at Home website with daily lessons that combine videos, stories and prompts for drawing and writing activities. Grade levels include pre-K and kindergarten, grades 1 and 2, grades 3 to 5, and grades 6 and up.

Khan Academy, a free online learning resource offering lessons, exercises and quizzes, has daily schedules for organizing at-home learning for students ages 4 to 18 years. On weekdays, Khan Academy is also offering daily livestreams on , and to help parents and educators best utilize the website's tools and resources.

Crash Course is a YouTube channel offering engaging educational videos suitable for high school students. The channel features a wide range of subjects, from anatomy to world history.

ABCmouse.com is offering a free 30-day trial of its comprehensive early learning academy for children aged 2-8 and includes educational games and activities designed by teachers.

In response to school closures, dozens of companies that produce educational materials have made their resources available as free subscriptions; you can find links on the Kids Activities website. Links to free K-12 educational resources such as audiobooks, e-books, videos, multimedia materials and more are also available on the Open Culture website.

PBS KIDS and PBS LearningMedia are offering tools to help support learning at home, including educational videos and games from favorite series, and related skill-building offline activities.

Subscribe to Time Magazine's Time for Kids for elementary and middle school students, digital subscriptions are free for the duration of the school year. This is the first time that the magazine is fully accessible at home.

Virtual museums and field trips

More than 2,500 museums around the world have made their collections accessible online through Google Arts and Culture; you can also use Google to access virtual tours of national parks in the U.S.

The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City offers online learning materials for science fans of all ages. Their Ology science website provides games and activities for kids and covers a range of science topics, including archaeology, paleontology, astronomy and marine biology. AMNH courses on Khan Academy delve into subjects such as human evolution, earthquakes and volcanoes, the universe, and, of course, dinosaurs. You can also peek behind the scenes on the museum's YouTube channel, or take a tour of the universe in videos created for the Hayden Planetarium.

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Air and Space Anywhere webpage provides virtual tours of the museum, and educational podcasts, games and activities about aircraft and spacecraft. And educators can turn to the museum's K-12 learning resources for STEM lessons, activities and videos on topics such as flight, planetary science, space, and engineering and technology.

All online programs and digital content at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum are now available for free.

Science learning

Every weekday at 10 a.m. PDT, the California Science Center is livestreaming "Stuck at Home Science," a new video series of science activities you can do at home.

Miami's Frost Science Museum's Frost Science@Home will give curious kids plenty to do, providing science activities and DIY science experiments.

Teen science fans will nerd out over Nova Labs at PBS, where they'll discover multimedia experiences that combine video, animation and games to delve into fascinating scientific topics, such as polar ecosystems, solar storms and renewable energy.

NASA isn't just sending missions into space; the agency has also launched Teachable Moments, connecting classrooms - and homes - with resources for investigating the latest discoveries about our universe. There are a range of activities and lessons that are suitable for grades K-12.

NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is another source of free online content. Educators share daily Facebook Live videos that pair with hands-on activities (instructions are available as free downloads) using materials that can be found at home. Topics include rocketry 101, tours of Space Shuttle Atlantis and the Astronaut Training Experience, and living in space and on Mars.

"Space Racers," an animated series for preschoolers about spacefaring cadets at the Stardust Space Academy, also offers science-based lessons, and space-related educational activities that families can explore together.

Ranger Rick, the children's magazine of the National Wildlife Federation, is making its website free to all visitors through the end of June. Free Ranger Rick Educator's Guides and Ranger Rick Jr. Parent Reading Guides are also available to parents and educators.

Beginning physics students will find plenty to discover in the Physics Classroom, and there are teacher toolkits for supplementing the site's online lessons with videos, animations, simulations and exercises.

Want to have a family Q&A with a scientist? Sign up at Skype a Scientist and get matched with an expert, for a live Skype chat with your family about real scientific research.

stemCONNECT uses video conferencing to bring together students and experts in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The site also has a free video library of Florida-based STEM experts talking about STEM application in a range of careers.

Explore simple plant science with this list of Live Science xperiments, or learn about non-Newtonian fluids by making colorful slime - regular or extra puffy - with glue and food coloring.

Creative and relaxing fun

Color Our Collections offers free PDF downloads of coloring pages created from art in the collections of 117 institutions, including The New York Academy of Medicine Library, Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg, RISD Museum, the North Carolina Museum of Art, The Canadian Canoe Museum and The Royal Horticultural Society libraries.

Got a 3D printer? You can download digital 3D models from NASA and print miniature satellites, landing sites, asteroids, spacecraft, spacesuits and astronaut tools.

If you have a regular printer (and paper), you can print and build paper models of Rosetta and Philae, the space probe and lander that visited comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014. More paper models of satellites and observatories are available for download from the European Space Agency's website.

Artist and writer Mo Willems (author of "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!") is hosting daily Lunch Doodles video sessions every weekday at 1 p.m. EDT. Each daily episode is accompanied by a downloadable activity page.

What could be more soothing than watching jellyfish drifting serenely through the water? In "MeditOcean," the Monterey Bay Aquarium hosts a soothing 11-minute guided meditation video, featuring the undulating and graceful ballet of several aquarium jellyfish.

Children in grades 3 to 12 can learn to write their names in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, in this step-by-step guide from the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada.

A good story sounds even better when it's read in microgravity. Story Time from Space sends children's books to the International Space Station (ISS), where the books are read on video by astronauts as they orbit hundreds of miles above Earth.

Snap Circuits are educational kits that teach kids - and adults! - about engineering and how electronics work. To help teachers, parents and students, the company has made its how-to guides available to download for free.

Get moving with fitness instructor Joe Wicks! His new video series, P.E. with Joe, presents a daily 30-minute workout that kids can perform at home.

There are 10 live webcams at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where you can peek at sharks, sea otters, penguins and more. The San Diego Zoo has 11 animal webcams, Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute has four animal webcams, and there are six webcams at the Houston Zoo.

And if you're feeling really adventurous, you can visit the surface of Mars in a spectacular high-resolution, 360-degree photo tour, created from images captured by the Curiosity rover.
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With impressive cutaway illustrations that show how things function, and mindblowing photography of the world's most inspiring spectacles, How It Works represents the pinnacle of engaging, factual fun for a mainstream audience keen to keep up with the latest tech and the most impressive phenomena on the planet and beyond. Written and presented in a style that makes even the most complex subjects interesting and easy to understand, How It Works is enjoyed by readers of all ages.
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Activities and online resources for homebound kids: A coronavirus guide

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Schools worldwide have closed in response to COVID-19, leaving parents and caregivers scrambling to find daily activities for their children. Today (April 3) Live Science updated our list of lessons, games, science experiments, live demonstrations and virtual tours, to help you find options that are educational, creative and entertaining during this uncertain period of self-isolation, social distancing and quarantine.

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Coronavirus guide for kids

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The ultimate kids' guide to the new coronavirus

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"Will school be closed?" and "Should I be worried about getting sick?"

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Taronga TV | Taronga Conservation Society Australia

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Taronga will be bringing the zoo to your homes so you can still see your favourite animals, meet the keepers and learn what goes on behind the scenes, plus laugh at some of the animal antics while the Zoo is temporarily closed.

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Science Exercises

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Science Resources

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Oxford University Museum of Natural History

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Museum staff members have chosen and written about a number of notable women that they find inspiring and have shaped science throughout history.