Welcome to your Science Adventure!
I am so excited you’re joining us this year! Welcome to the Supercharged Science Family!
I am going to do all the lesson planning and content delivery for your science curriculum, and it all starts on this page. Here you will find the lessons on video to start off each science lesson. The videos on this page go with Academic Year Planner (link below).
Academic Year 2020-21
Welcome to our Supercharged Science Family! I am so excited you’re joining us this year! This online program is very flexible. Your child can work through the program at their own pace, fast or slow, and on their own schedule. You can watch the lessons in any order, as many times as you’d like.
You don’t have to worry about trying to come up with a weekly science curriculum, answering hard science questions, and getting your kids to do their lessons… I’m going to do all the heavy lifting for you and do all of this and more! All YOU need to do is provide the kids.
You'll find all the LIVE science classes I taught each week during the 2020-21 academic year listed on this page. The format of the class is this: first, we introduce one science concept to your kids. Near the end of each lesson, I’ll answer questions and point to the experiments that go with the science topic we just covered.
If you're using the curriculum from 2020-21, plan on doing science 3 times per week, for 30 minutes to one hour per session.
You'll find a material list and set of experiments you can expect to do with each month's topic. You can start the program at any time.
The content below works through my science curriculum in only one year. What that means is that we'll be hitting the big concepts and showing you the best experiments to do that really bring these science concepts to life. If you want to go into more depth on a topic, click TOPICS at the top of this page and take a deeper dive into that area for as long as your child in interested and excited to learn more. This is YOUR program and you get to make it work best for YOU.
Science is about developing a deep curiosity about the world around us, AND having a set of tools that let kids explore that curiosity to answer their questions. Science is all about formulating questions, and creating experiments to answer those questions. It's a way of thinking, a process of learning that has a definite method. You can't learn that from just reading a textbook, filling out endless rounds of drill worksheets, or watching silly cartoon animations.
If you're brand new, please also check out the Getting Started videos!
Step 1: Download your Science Packet.
I've put together a schedule of the classes I will be teaching live every week, and you are welcome to join me! There will be engineering challenges, time for questions and interaction, and so much more during our time together. This is also called an "Academic Planner", as it contains the information you need to plan out your academic year.
Science Syllabus: A Year of Science with Aurora
The links below will walk you through my online science program, step by step. We're going to start with an overview week, where we will take a full week to look at each area of science: Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science, and Engineering, spending a day on each. This is intended to be a fun way to get us started with our year of science together.
In the weeks after, we'll be taking a more in-depth, deeper-dive into each scientific concept. You are welcome to continue this year with me, or if you prefer to go at your own pace, please feel free to do so on your own schedule. The button below is an excerpt from the Academic Year Science Packet.
Step 2. Download your Bonus Resources
You can go through the content on this website at your own pace, in any order. However, if you would like me to walk you through my online program, then going through the syllabus below in order will do that for you.
Each week we're going to pick a scientific concept to focus on, learn all about it, and then do our science experiments to further our investigation of the concept.
Most classes will point to the section of the online program that corresponds to the experiments kids can do right after class. A few of the live class recordings have brand-new labs that I've released to go with the new content covered, and you can find these new labs by clicking the GREEN buttons that say "Download this Lab" below the video that they go with. These labs have not yet been incorporated into the online program, so you can only find them here on this page.
Let's start by looking at the handouts you can download for each month.
How to make your own Data Table
As you work through the program, you'll be creating your experiments and inventions, and it can be handy to know how to create your own data tables. Remember, the whole point of doing science experiments is to answer a question that you have scientifically. Sometimes it gets too complicated to keep everything in your head, so we use data tables to track what the experiment is doing.
The video below will show you how to create your own data table, step by step.
Step 3. Work through the content!
Aurora taught for 16 months straight since March 2020 through June 2021 , and most of the content during that time period is below for you!
Initially, she stepped up to teach five days a week for an hour each day to help out the community when our schools shut down. Those classes were free of charge and open to everyone, until June 1, 2020. Then she moved into the summer camp program, and starting in August 2020, she taught live science classes three times per week (30 minutes to one hour sessions) for 40 weeks.
That's 243 live science classes PLUS an additional 15 field trips, 14 weekend star gazing sessions, 10 Science Parties, and 80+ more hours on private zoom sessions with her students! All of this content (except the private zoom calls and science parties) is available right here on this page at the links below. This content will remain up so you can use it as your main curriculum if you choose.
August 2020 - Civil & General Engineering
We’re going to discover what it’s really like to be an engineer by building bridges, buildings, and skyscrapers and also by working our way through several engineering challenges which includes design, construction, and troubleshooting. Taught by a real engineer! Topics: buildings, tension, compression, building materials, projects, and engineering fields.
September 2020 – Physics of Motion
This month, we are focusing on the fundamentals of physics. You’ll be taking a crash-course in physics as you swing, zoom, bang, drop, roll and tangle with Newton’s Laws of Motion and understand the basics principles of Energy. Kids will be experimenting with hovercraft, freefall motion, parachutes, catapults, building three kinds of speakers, and more!
- Week 5: Mechanics (Forces, Friction & Hovercraft Races)
- Week 6: Motion (Velocity, Acceleration & Freefall Challenge)
- Week 7: Energy (Potential, Kinetic), Work & Power (Catapult Challenge)
- Week 8: Sound (Vibration, Resonance, Waves & Speakers)
- Week 9: Special Class: Design and Build a Rube Goldberg Machine!
October 2020 – Physics of Light
Discover the amazing properties of light by learning about intensity, color, brightness, polarization, and more as you work your way through the electromagnetic spectrum! We're going to build laser light shows, reflect holograms, shatter sunlight, and bend light into a pretzel using physics.
November 2020 - Electricity, Magnetism, Circuits, & Robotics
Spark together circuits, wire up motors, and build your own wiggly, dancing robot out of everyday stuff! We're going to discover how to use basic electrical components to construct burglar alarms, sensors, robots, magnetic accelerators, and more!
December - Chemistry & Chemical Reactivity
Ooze, bubble, and slurp your way through the periodic table as you grow dinosaur toothpaste, coagulate slime, crystallize molecules, shake up ice cream, blast cannons and make a liquid freeze by heating it up. Discover 5 states of matter, supercooling, chemical kinetics, phase shifts and much more. Topics: chemical kinetics, molecules, elements, atoms, chemical reactions.
January 2021 - Mechanical Engineering
Mechanical Engineering is one of the oldest branches in engineering, this area of science covers a wide scope. Mechanical engineers are good at taking the world of physics and applying it to the real world to solve problems and innovate solutions, including engines and power systems, heat and cooling systems, renewable and alternative energy sources, electronics and circuits and so much more. Students who study this in college will also cover Civil Engineering (previously covered in Weeks 2-4) and Aerospace/Aeronautical Engineering (coming up soon!).
February 2021 – Biology & Life Science
We’re going to cover different areas of biology in this course, including zoology, biochemistry, molecular biology, ecology, botany and more. Discover how to be a real biologist in the field as well as learn the big concepts in biology and how they tie into both physics and chemistry.
We’ll also uncover a whole new world of amazing organisms as we learn how to use a microscope! Learn about magnification, optics, and compound microscope anatomy as you learn to prepare wet and dry mount specimens, perform staining techniques, and fire heat fixes. Even if you don’t own a microscope, you can still join our class, we’ll teach you how you can make a pocket microscope, live cell laser microscope and more!
March 2021 – Astronomy & Astrophysics
Take an intergalactic star tour of the universe as you discover supermassive black holes, spinning neutron stars, active quasars, supernovae, and more! Listen to pulsars, explore time travel, make plasma in your kitchen and solar eclipses in a the closet. You’ll spilt light, build telescopes, and learn how to navigate the night skies with our stargazing sessions!
April 2021 - Aviation & Aerospace Engineering
Aerospace engineers design and develop aircraft and spacecraft. Aeronautical engineers focus on aircraft that fly through the Earth’s atmosphere, and astronautical engineers are the “rocket scientists”, dealing with spacecraft and rockets that operate both inside and outside of the atmosphere. Pilots fly both aircraft and spacecraft, and study aviation. Aviation includes fixed-wing (airplanes), rotary wing (helicopters), lighter-than-air (hot air balloons) and airships. We’re going to learn about both sides: how to design and develop flying craft as well as how to fly.
May 2021 - Geology, Meteorology, Earth & Planetary Science
Explore our dynamic planet! We’ll first study the systems of the atmosphere and weather as you get to build a homemade weather station, complete with cloud tracker and hair hygrometer for measuring the Earth’s atmosphere. You also get to learn about convection currents, liquid crystals, air pressure and how sunlight, water and wind can be used as sources of energy. You’ll also learn techniques to identify, test, and classify rock and mineral samples you come across that real scientists use in the field.
We'll triangulate earthquake epicenters, sneak a peek inside lava tubes, and discover some of the most geological amazing dynamics on the planet. In our last week together, we'll explore planets beyond our own and learn about the brand-new field of Astrogeology and Planetary Science!