What kind of coat will keep you the warmest, one made from cotton, steel wool or air? In this experiment, students test three materials to determine which one is the best insulator.

How should you build a boat so that it carries the most cargo? In this experiment, students form teams to solve an engineering problem.

In this experiment, students measure the area of a dime using methods similar to those used by scientists to measure the size of atoms. When working with atoms, scientists sometimes have to invent new ways of doing simple things. For instance, scientists can't use a ruler to measure the size of an atom's nucleus. This activity shows how ratios can be used to calculate the area covered by an object.

The instructions provided here are of devices that have been built for Jefferson Lab's Science Education program. The difficulty of construction varies from project to project. Anyone attempting to construct these devices needs to know and understand how to safely operate the tools required to construct them. If you do not know how to properly operate power tools or a soldering iron, you should not attempt to build any of these devices.

Students use a Although atoms contain both negatively and positively charged particles, they do so in equal amounts and carry no net charge. This balance can be temporarily disrupted by rubbing one material against another. One device, known as a Van de Graaff generator, uses a fast moving rubber belt to charge a metallic dome to nearly 200,000 Volts. This activity uses a Van de Graaff generator to study the behavior of electrical charges.

Welcome to It's Elemental - Balancing Act! The computer will give you a number of incomplete chemical equations. Balance the chemical equations by selecting coefficients from the pull-down menus. Once you think the equation is balanced, press the 'Check my answer!'

Learn every element's chemical symbol while playing bingo!

The computer will display a number of cards with the names and symbols of the elements. After you have had time to study the cards, the computer will flip them over and ask you to find a particular element. Click on the card that contains that element.

Use the clues provided to solve each crossword puzzle. To place letters on the puzzle, first select the clue you are answering from the pull-down menu and then enter your answer in the text box. Press the 'return' key on your keyboard when you are done. Correct letters will be green while incorrect letters will be red.

The computer will give you an element and, depending on the selections you make below, you will have to supply the element's chemical name, chemical symbol or atomic number. Enter your answer into the text box and press the 'Check my answer' button. Remember, spelling counts!

The computer will give you a list of chemical symbols and a list of chemical names. Choose the chemical name that each chemical symbol represents. Press the 'Check my answers!' button after you have made your choices.

The computer will randomly pick an element and present you with that element's data from the Periodic Table of Elements. Use that information to answer the question that the computer asks about the number of protons, neutrons, electrons or nucleons (particles in the nucleus) that an atom of that element contains.

The computer will pick an element and then scramble the letters in its name. Once you think you have unscrambled the element's name, type the name into the text box and press the 'return' key on your keyboard.

Hidden in the puzzle below are 32 terms used in origami and geometry. The words may be spelled vertically, horizontally, backwards or diagonally. Some letters may be used in more than one word.

Developed for use with Jefferson Lab's Go Far Cars experiment, this simple ramp can easily be set to four different height settings. The ramp settings are uniformly spaced, so the amount of gravitational potential energy given to an object at the top of the ramp increases by a constant amount as the ramp is placed at higher settings. The instructions provided here are of devices that have been built for Jefferson Lab's Science Education program. The difficulty of construction varies from project to project. Anyone attempting to construct these devices needs to know and understand how to safely operate the tools required to construct them. If you do not know how to properly operate power tools or a soldering iron, you should not attempt to build any of these devices.

What happens to a racquetball when it gets very cold? What happens to neon gas when it gets very hot? In this experiment, liquid nitrogen and Tesla coils are used to study the effects of extreme temperatures on everyday objects.

Jefferson Lab's accelerator only works if all of its thousands of components work together. In this experiment, students work together to move 'electrons' down their 'accelerator'.

The instructions provided here are of devices that have been built for Jefferson Lab's Science Education program. The difficulty of construction varies from project to project. Anyone attempting to construct these devices needs to know and understand how to safely operate the tools required to construct them. If you do not know how to properly operate power tools or a soldering iron, you should not attempt to build any of these devices.

The instructions provided here are of devices that have been built for Jefferson Lab's Science Education program. The difficulty of construction varies from project to project. Anyone attempting to construct these devices needs to know and understand how to safely operate the tools required to construct them. If you do not know how to properly operate power tools or a soldering iron, you should not attempt to build any of these devices.