Category Archives: Resources

For #StayAtHome families, local institutions are offering free online virtual tours and presentations.

• The New England Aquarium is offering a free virtual presentation every day on Facebook at 11AM — as well as online recordings of all previous presentations. These include lectures by National Geographic photographer and Aquarium Explorer-in Residence Brian Skerry every Friday at 11AM.
• Boston’s Museum of Science offers #MOSatHome, with daily interactive sessions, videos, podcasts, family STEM activities, virtual town halls, and more.
• The Ecotarium is offering a free virtual tour of its museum and  free online resources.
• The Massachusetts Audubon Society offers free online videos and other resources.
• Harvard Museum of Natural History has online lecture videos, online exhibits about naming species and evolution on islands, as well as many other online exhibitions.
• Harvard’s Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments offers lecture videos, a video introduction and Waywiser to allow online visitors to explore its objects and record.
• Harvard Museums of Science and Culture offer these lecture videos.
• Blue Hill Observatory & Science Center offers online weather webinars for everyone ages 6+ (and additional webinars for younger kids will be offered if there’s sufficient interest). Click on these links to join the online meetings at the appropriate time:
  • April 6, 1PM: History of Blue Hill Observatory
  • April 8, 1PM: Weather Watching at Great Blue Hill
  • April 10, 1PM: The 1927 Flood in Vermont and New England

The John M. Barry Boys & Girls Club is offering STEM programs on its website and Facebook page, including LEGO Challenges, DIY STEM, Coding, and other fun programs. Follow on Facebook to keep up-to-date.

Mad Science of North Boston is offering 60-minute science lessons online at 10AM daily (discounted pricing for a week). It’s also holding a liquidation sale of its remaining Home Lab Kits (separate kits for Chemistry, NASA, Secret Agent, and Mad Scientist Mystery) for $30 each and LEGO Kits $20 each, shipping included. Order here.

Science Club for Girls has moved online, offering hands-on activities, videos, podcasts, and virtual tours each Monday for its STEM Activity for the Week on the SCFG Facebook page. Everyone — not just SCFG members — is invited to try out the experiments and post on social media about them with the tag #SCFGatHome. You can also email photos or videos of your activity to scfg@scienceclubforgirls.org for SCFG to share. SCFG also offers this list of at-home STEM activities, videos, podcasts, and other resources.

Each spring, NEPTUN (a Northeastern University student group) hosts Splash!, a free program for students in Grades 9-12 to take mini-classes led by Northeastern undergraduate and graduate students.  This spring, Splash! has moved online to Digital Splash! STEM courses include:

• Introduction to Sound
• Mechanical Engineering of the Catapult
• The Fermi Paradox
• Philosophical BS (Ethics of Technology)
• Egg Drop Challenge
• Playing with Perception
• The Apotheosis Hypothesis (Bioengineering)
• How (not) to Die in a Chemistry Lab

The New England Sci-Tech STEM education center in Natick is offering online classes in science fact and fiction.  Many of the classes are free for members, and admission is low-cost for everyone else.

• Amateur Radio License Course – Technician (all ages): Learn the basics of wireless technology and get an FCC radio license.
• Amateur Radio License Course – General (all ages): Upgrade to a higher level
• Ask a Fire Fighter (Grades 3-10): Learn about fire fighting and fire safety.
• Ham Radio Shop Talk (all ages): Ask a mentor how to use your radio.
• Yes, This is Rocket Science (ages 8-adult, or younger children accompanied by an adult): Learn concepts, design a rocket, run simulated flights, print parts lists and plans.
• Deep Thought (Grades 6-12): Discuss time travel, faster-than-light travel, teleportation, relativity, quantum mechanics, and more.
• Sci-Fi Fan Club – (grades 6-12): Discuss sci-fi literature and share sci-fi short stories.
• Dinner and a Sci-Fi Movie (grades 6-12): Discuss sci-fi movies and examine the plausible science behind the fiction.

The Newton North HS STEMentors club was formed to bring STEM lessons to Newton students in Grades K-8 in schools, libraries, and expos. During COVID-19 #FlattenTheCurve closings, STEMentors is offering a montage of science experiments for kids to try at home through a video and an online document to demonstrate and explain each experiment. Send them feedback at stementors.nnhs@gmail.com.

The Knowledge Society, with offices in Cambridge and several other cities, is a 10-month accelerator program for curious and ambitious teens to learn how to use emerging technologies to solve big problems. It’s now offering these online resources for teens:

• Online sessions each week (sign up here), including access to recordings of previous sessions:  Cellular agriculture, Brain-computer interfaces, Human longevity, Gene editing, and Artificial intelligence.
• Free online learning modules brain-computer interfaces, space technologies, and viruses (sign up here).

The WGBH Distance Learning Center is broadcasting educational programming in science and social studies, noon to 5PM daily for Grades 6-12 on WGBH WORLD (Comcast 956, FiOS 473, RCN 94, Cox 807, Charter 181) and WGBY WORLD (over-the-air 57.2, Comcast 209, Spectrum 181 and 1275).

In addition, it offers on-demand streaming of education programs for Grades Pre-K, K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12.