Hands-on Workshops for Groups

(Boy and Girl Scouts, clubs, after-school caregivers and groups, church groups, Sunday school classes, etc.)


Science fun never ends at the Science Theatre! After the busyness of the morning school group programming, the Science Theatre is filled with small groups doing a myriad of hands-on activities in the Science Spy Training Center, a space designed just for workshops. Each two-hour workshop engages elementary and middle school aged children with 6-10 different activity stations designed around a specific topic. Workshops are scheduled around your group’s availability (afternoons, evenings and/or weekends) and can be customized to meet particular requirements. Cost is $9/child. Groups with less than 10 children are welcome, but must pay a minimum fee of $90.

Call (423) 648-6040 or (423) 648-6045 to book your after hours fun!

Choose from the following fantastic possibilities:

Design Squad
Solve engineering challenges just like the kids on the PBS television show, Design Squad! You will need lots of creativity and inventiveness to solve the challenges. Build a speedy gravity car, invent a ping pong ball flyer, create a sneaky alarm, design a wind sculpture, engineer a ping pong ball zip line, create a moving sculpture with a computer program, and many more.

Amazing Automata
Explore simple machines elements such as cams, levers, and linkages to create a one-of-a-kind mechanical sculpture. The projects use very simple materials, but the results are limited only by your imagination, creativity and ability to implement the ideas. You’ll be amazed at the movement and sound you can create!

Computer Bugs
Learn simple logic and programming to create automated sculptures. Use Lego blocks and other craft materials to create all kinds of fanciful objects that move, make music, and light up using the same kinds of sensors that robots use.

Cardboard Creations
Recycling is good for everyone. Using the all types of cardboard construct some amazing contraptions and beautiful objet d’art! You’ll never look at cardboard the same way again. Start saving your cereal boxes and bring them with you to personalize your creations. Create instruments, make new paper from old paper, build a 3-D sculpture and then use paper mache to hold it together.

Marble Mania
Marble games teach lots of science concepts, like forces, transfer of energy, trajectory, and reflection. Of course, there is great strategy involved and cultural differences in the way marble games are played. Play marble games from around the world. Make a marble wall maze to see who can make their marble fall the slowest. Create homemade marbles using different materials and determine the best marble making substance. Paint with marbles and create a marble maze. Become a Marble Maven!

Stupendous Slime
Who knew there were so many different kinds of slime?! Create ooey, gooey, slippery, sticky, stinky, rubbery, bubbly and many other types of slime by mixing simple ingredients. Each type of slime represents a different science concept, but they are all super fun!

Wicked Wind
Enter the Wind Tube Forest and explore wind in wickedly wonderful ways. Create objects that hover, float, fly, race, soar and sink in a column of wind. Learn how airfoils on airplanes work and understand the Bernoulli principle. Create flying objects of all sorts. Design a wind turbine blade to generate the greatest amount of electricity. Wicked!

Amazing Race
Solve a series of mysteries and challenges to determine where in the world you you’ve landed. Use money to buy clues and develop a strategy to get to your final destination before the other competitors.

Mystery Theatre & Crime Scene Investigation
The wonderful and wacky actors of First Draft Productions will present a theatrical production in which a crime is committed. The audience must solve the mystery of “who did it” by using real crime scene investigation techniques to analyze the evidence. It’s hilarious! It’s fun! It’s Science Theatre! (ATTENTION BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA – This workshop meets most of the requirements necessary to complete the Fingerprinting and Chemistry merit badges.)

Water Ways
Moving water is fun to play with and has some really interesting properties. Come explore the ways of water and build your own waterway with numerous kinds of boats to float and move.

Blast Off!
Send bottles, cans, balls, and potatoes high into the air. You will use all sorts of things as “fuel” and different kinds of devices to see just how high things can fly.

Star Lab
Participate in a short outer space science demonstration. Crawl through our inflatable planetarium to view the constellations and hear ancient stories related to easily identifiable constellations. Create your own constellation viewer, a unique constellation and a gravitron.

Potions & Concoctions
Learn how to use different kinds of measuring tools, read a recipe, follow simple instructions and some basic chemistry to create fun and intriguing kinds of concoctions. No magic involved – just really cool science!

Lotions & Potions
Make and take home wonderfully scented beauty products made from simple materials; including bath bombs, bath jelly, bath scrubbers, lip balm, hand lotion, scented powder, and old fashioned toothpowder. There is a lot of science in beauty products!

Electricity
Create simple, series and parallel circuits. Explore static and current electricity in a number of new and fun ways. The power and ways of electricity come alive in this workshop.

Magical Science
Explore some amazing science using all the senses. The activities are so cool that the children think there is magic involved, but it’s all science! This 30 minute workshop is appropriate for the pre-school and kindergarten age children.

Matter
Become a scientist and use dry ice to better understand what happens as matter changes states. Budding scientists develop and carry out experiments of their own design.

Brownie Girl Scout Try Its!
Bring your scout troop to the Science Theatre for a 2 hour workshop and complete all the activities needed to earn the Try Its below. Pick two Try Its to complete in one workshop.

• Art to Wear
• Make It, Eat It
• Travel Right, Around the World, People of the World and Playing Around the World
• Color and Shapes
• Earth and Sky
• Earth is Our Home
• Movers
• Numbers and Shapes
• Science in Action and Science Wonders
• Senses
• Making Music and Sounds of Music