Field Trips to Our Lab

(Due to the Corona virus, we are unable to offer Field Trips at this time.)

When we share science with children, there are screams of joy, laughter, and moments of pure amazement — “Wow, did you see that?!!”

Our laboratory is a delight for students of all ages. There are machines to make lightning bolts with a flash and a bang! There is a Tesla Coil to create streams of purple sparks 6 feet wide. There is a giant, medieval-style crossbow, a castle tower, robots, and huge magnifying lenses that can melt a penny in 30 seconds!

Our main laboratory classroom in Santa Clara is designed to stimulate children’s imaginations and promote creative problem-solving. A team of homeschool parents and students painted this room to resemble a medieval castle. We also have a much larger multi-purpose room for lessons that require more space.

We present science in a such a way that the students are eager to learn more. Each lesson includes a fractured fairy tale featuring Jack, Jill, and the evil Mister Fred. These stories present a problem for the students to solve, which opens up their creativity so that they’re ready to make discoveries themselves.

These are not just demonstrations — each child gets to personally manipulate objects and materials and watch how they bounce, light up, dissolve, fly, break, disappear or do other strange and wonderful things.

Great for school class outings, scout troups, homeschool groups, and others. (Sorry, we don’t do birthday parties.) We also offer specially-designed field trips for G.A.T.E. students.

Field Trip Structure & Pricing:

Email us to schedule a Field Trip.

Location:
Rock-it Science
2110 Walsh Ave., Suite F
Santa Clara, CA 95050
Map & Directions

Price: $295 per hour. Minimum 2 hours, maximum 4 hours. Maximum 36 students per group.

Duration: Lessons are 60 minutes each. Choose from our Field Trip Experiment List below.

Event Times: Mondays, anytime between 8:30 am and 5:00 pm. By appointment only.

Student Ages: A group may include students from Kindergarten through 5th Grade.

Chaperones Required: At least two adult chaperones who know the children by name and can keep them orderly so the instructor can focus on the science lesson.

Field Trip Experiment List:

(Download this list as a pdf file.)
Please Note: Our lessons are constantly being revised and updated, so the video clips shown below may be somewhat different from the lessons your students receive.
Chemistry
Earth Sciences
Electricity
Light & Heat
Magnetism
Motion
Simple Machines

Chemistry

Bouncy Stretchy Goo: Students mix up a corn starch goop that acts both as a solid and a liquid. They compare it to rubber made from white glue and Boraxo (GAK). This relates to mixtures, solutions, chemical reactions, non-Newtonian fluids, viscosity, and elasticity. See Trailer
Calcium Carbide: It looks like an ordinary rock, but some say that it smells like garlic. When it touches water it fizzes and, with a bit of luck, it can be used to blow the top off of a plastic cup. This relates to properties of matter, combustion, and air pressure. See Trailer
Candle-in-a-Jar: We dispel the myth that a candle consumes oxygen and produces no other gases. The students learn about the source for the Greenhouse Effect as they discover the properties relating to birthday candles. This relates to combustion, air pressure, vacuum, atmospheric gases, and liquids. See Trailer
Exploding Film Cans: Students discover how an automobile engine mixes fuel and air to produce motion. A tiny amount of butane is used to discover the effects of too much or too little oxygen in the combustion chamber. This relates to combustion, fuel and air balance, air pressure, and projectile motion. See Trailer
Hot, Cold, and Fizzy: Students discover that common chemicals can create a wide variety of results when they are mixed in a certain way. This relates to dissolving, chemical reactions, mixtures, exothermic reactions, endothermic reactions, acids, bases, and acid/base indicators. See Trailer
Making Ice Cream: Students discover how to lower the freezing point of water enough so that their sample of ice cream becomes a solid. This relates to freezing point depression, solutions, melting point, freezing point, and temperature scales. See Trailer
Shrinking Plastic: Students discover that certain plastics will shrink dramatically upon heating. They then make an ornament on a container of clear plastic and shrink it to show how some areas shrink more than others. This relates to heat, properties of matter, molecular structure of carbon, and recycling. See Trailer
Smoke Rings: Students discover a way to make a puff of air travel across the classroom with amazing efficiency. We then use stage fog to create smoke rings of many sizes. This relates to combustion, properties of matter, chemical properties of oxygen and carbon, and air flow. See Trailer
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Earth Sciences

Dry Ice: Students discover how to make a hollow ice egg, how soap bubbles can float in mid air, how to make fog, and how to make eerie noises.This relates to solids, liquids, gases, sublimation, condensation, dew point, freezing point, vibrations, clouds, greenhouse effect, and respiration. See Trailer
Earthquakes: Students discover how different types of shaking motions can affect their tower made from Lego bricks. They will see the shapes of earthquake waves and will be introduced to the numbers associated with earthquakes. This relates to plate tectonics, wave motion, and speed of wave propagation through solids, structures, and vibration. See Trailer
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Electricity

An Electrifying Experience: Students discover what happens when colored light bulbs are hooked up in series and in parallel. They also check a wide variety of materials to see if they are conductors.This relates to batteries, circuits, resistance, short circuits, and energy transformation. (No video clip)
Exploding Bubbles: Students discover what happens when electricity passes through water. We then let them combine the resulting hydrogen and oxygen back into water with a loud bang! This relates to water, hydrogen and oxygen, electricity, and combustion. See Trailer
Foam Cutters: Students use a battery and a thin piece of wire and find ways to make the wire melt through thin foam. This relates to electricity, resistance, and melting point. See Trailer
Hand Crank Generators: Students provide the power to activate lights, motors, bells, and fans. In the process they will develop an appreciation of how much energy is needed to run ordinary electrical devices. This relates to electromagnetism, electric fields, resistance, current and voltage. See Trailer
Static Electricity: Students learn about thunder, lightning, and electrons. They discover how to separate a mixture of salt and pepper, lightning safety, and with one hair-raising experience, they discover the nature of static electricity. This relates to weather, lightning safety, electrons, positive and negative charges, voltage, lightning bolts, and cloud formation. See Trailer
Tesla Coil: This device creates continuous streamers of purple lightning over 6 feet across, accompanied by staccato thunder. Students create faces on soda bottles and attempt to get streamers coming out of the eyes and hair before it melts and burns up. This relates to resonance, electricity, high voltage, conductivity, and heat. (No video clip)
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Light & Heat

Candle-in-a-Jar: We dispel the myth that a candle consumes oxygen and produces no other gases. The students learn about the source for the Greenhouse Effect as they discover the properties relating to birthday candles. This relates to combustion, air pressure, vacuum, atmospheric gases, and liquids. See Trailer
Glow Sticks: Students light up their glow sticks and try to find ways to make them glow more brightly or dimly. Then they paint with glow stick chemicals on a black surface. This relates to chemistry, luminescence, chemical reactions, heat and light. See Trailer
Heat Conduction Dry Ice: Students discover how well heat travels through materials (such as copper, zinc, iron, aluminum, magnesium, plastic, wood and foam) that are touching dry ice. This relates to conductivity, specific heat, and insulators. (No video clip)
Lasers and Mirrors: Students use their reflections in plastic mirrors to discover how to make a million eyes, an infinite ‘tunnel’, periscopes, kaleidoscopes, and how the ‘fun house’ mirrors work. A laser is used to show the light path. This relates to reflection, refraction, interference, rainbows, lasers, light waves, and color. See Trailer
Solar Furnace: On a clear day we experiment with the sun’s energy. Students don protective eyewear and we place many types of material at the focal point to see what happens. On a hot summer day, it can melt a penny in 30 seconds. This relates to solar energy, light, heat, curved lenses, melting point, and combustion. See Trailer
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Magnetism

Magnetic Creatures: Students discover all the weird things that magnets can do. Students make their own alien creature that moves magnetically through the habitat they create. This relates to magnetic fields, electrons, magnetic materials, attraction and repulsion, and north versus south poles. See Trailer
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Motion

Cartesian Divers: Students make a tiny submersible and put it in a bottle of water. Then they try to find ways to make it go up and down. This relates to compressibility, density, and buoyancy. See Trailer
Gigantic Bubbles: Students try making bubbles in their hands, on the tabletop, and outdoors. We also create a bubble tube large enough for a student to stand inside. This is related to buoyancy, air convection, reflection of light, evaporation, and light interference. See Trailer
Guided Balloon Rockets: Students launch long balloons and try different curvatures to see how the flight is affected. This relates to weight and buoyancy, friction, air pressure, and air flow around curved surfaces. See Trailer
Hovercraft: Students use balloons and DVDs to create a hovercraft that will slide effortlessly across the table. This relates to air pressure, surface area, friction, balance, and air bearings. See Trailer
Parachutes: Students make parachutes and launch them into the sky. This relates to viscosity, buoyancy, lift and drag. (No video clip)
Water Bottle Rockets: Students launch water bottles with bicycle pumps and discover how to make them go higher and farther by adding weight! This experiment demonstrates Newton’s laws of motion in a way that they will not forget. This relates to pressure, friction, air drag, momentum, compression of air, energy storage, Newton’s three laws of motion, and teamwork. See Trailer
Water-Powered Cars: Students use bicycle pumps to pressurize their cars with either air or a mixture of air and water. Then they try to find out which mix makes their car go the furthest. This relates to pressure, friction, air drag, momentum, compression of air, energy storage, and Newton’s three laws of motion. (No video clip)
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Simple Machines

Catapults: Students discover the best way to launch plastic grapes with a catapult that converts mechanical energy into kinetic energy. This relates to strength of materials, kinetic and potential energy, and Newton’s three laws of motion. See Trailer
Gyroscopes: Students discover how the gyroscopic effect can help them steer a bicycle. Then they make a gyroscopic top and try to make it spin as long as possible. This relates to momentum, balance, center of mass, and guidance of missiles and aircraft. See Trailer
Roller Coasters: Students work in groups to make a roller coaster with split foam tubes, marbles, and tape. They discover amazing ways to get as many energy conversions as possible. This relates to potential and kinetic energy, friction, inertia, and teamwork. See Trailer
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