Science Kits

We need to STOP, think, and realise that Earth’s finite resources are being used at an ever-increasing rate.  Does the way we live generate too much waste? Are we dealing with our discarded waste sustainably or is it filling and contaminating our environment? Should we be looking for inspiration from the natural world where there is no waste and processes work in cycles?

The activities in this kit focus on the 6 ‘R’s’ of resource management – rethink, refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle and repair.

Sustainable ways must be found to make, and remake, new products with a focus on designing out waste.

Antarctica is the highest, windiest, driest, coldest place on the planet, but also one of the most interesting.

What kinds of animals and plants live there? How do they survive? What do they eat? How do they stay warm? Why does this continent have such an important role in global climate regulation?

This resource allows students to explore the diverse flora and fauna that inhabit this polar desert and the ocean that surrounds it. Ice is made and melted and frost is created in the classroom. Antarctic marine food chains are used to demonstrate feeding relationships, the importance of krill as a keystone species and the impacts of unsustainable fishing practices in this unique ecosystem. Students can investigate how whales feed, how much food they eat as well as the many adaptations polar animals have that allow them to survive this harsh environment.

Antarctica and its environs influence our climate in many ways. This resource has a focus on the Southern Ocean, its ecosystems and their roles in climate regulation.

A marine ecosystem in a classroom? Absolutely. Who would have thought sea monkeys could be so fascinating?

What role do sea turtles have in maintaining the health of our oceans? Who is eating who? Why do fish come in so many different shapes and sizes? What does sustainable fishing mean? Bycatch and target species? What happens to human-created waste in the ocean?

This resource introduces students to how understanding the ocean is essential to protecting our planet.

Humans and other animals need the oxygen present in air to survive and when the air we breathe is of poor quality it can affect our health.

The hands-on activities in this resource allow students to explore the structure and function of the human respiratory tract, its natural defense mechanisms, and investigate their own lung capacity – lots of huffing and puffing! Air quality monitors are provided to demonstrate how the quality of the air that we breathe, both inside and outside the classroom, can be monitored, measured, and modified.

Students are also given the opportunity to collect, store, and anlayse information about air quality in their own classrooms, giving rise to discussions about carbon dioxide levels and the importance of adequate ventilation to create a healthy, effective learning environment.

Students and teachers alike will love the comprehensive introduction to this important topic. From Earth’s system ‘Jenga’ to ocean acidification, this kit covers it all. Key vocabulary is introduced, and students learn about the importance of plants as the ‘lungs’ of the Earth.

Thermometers in jars are used to simulate the greenhouse effect and there are some engaging activities to demonstrate the importance of water to our planet. A total of eight interactive activities will leave everyone better informed and empowered to care for our planet.

10 small skeletons, a large skeleton on a stand, lots of X-Rays, and a rabbit skeleton can all be found in this box of treasures! Children will love discovering all the bones in their bodies as they examine skeletons, and images of Zac with his ‘see-through body’.

With a focus on form and function, they will explore individual bones and compare/contrast them with other species.

Covers the living world strand with strong links to literacy and a great context for awesome writing activities. Optional extension ideas include researching animals with exoskeletons and exploring joints.

What is happening beneath our feet that gives rise to the powerful and spectacular forces that cause constant movement and changes in the Earth’s landscape? What causes the Earth’s crust to fracture and break, releasing waves of energy and molten rock (lava) from its interior?

To understand why the surface of the Earth is constantly moving and changing, students are first introduced to the composition of the Earth and its crust. They model the movement of the huge slabs of rock (tectonic plates) that fit together like puzzle pieces to form the surface of the Earth. Students are given the resources to create, and discuss, different types of volcanoes, and volcanic eruptions and identify volcanic rocks. The different types of energy waves caused by earthquakes, their movement, and their destructive capacity, are also explored in a hands-on way.

Bright sparks will have fun exploring electricity, moving from making simple circuits using playdough, battery packs, and LED bulbs for L1 students, to making working torches and measuring brightness for L4.

Students see how a solar-powered car works and make a battery from salty water. Finally, they build their own anemometer to investigate the windiest place on the school grounds. The activities are sequential, each building on preceding learning, to build an understanding of electrical currents, conductivity, circuits, resistance, and insulation.

Five activities that explore everyday examples of phenomena surrounding light. Experiments using mirrors, lasers, prisms, and the colour wheel demonstrate refraction, reflection, diffraction, and the nature of the colour spectrum.

Students play with light, creating rainbows with prisms, making periscopes, and using lasers to discover how light can be bent. Students will develop collaborative skills and the use of scientific language to explain this aspect of the natural world.

From ‘fireworks’ in a test tube to changing the colour of a candle flame, children will love the exciting activities in this materials world box. There are many opportunities to predict, observe and explain natural phenomena, especially in the context of fire.

What is the fire triangle? What are the different zones in a candle flame and what is happening in each zone? What creates the colours in fireworks? All these questions are explored in a safe but engaging way. This kit is a great springboard for creative writing and art.

Bounce’, ‘flex’, ‘spring’ – what is elastic potential energy? Energy is in everything. It is the force that allows things to go, move and happen. Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot disappear. This resource ‘unpacks’ a difficult concept using familiar everyday items such as rubber bands, slingshots, catapults, springs and a variety of balls – tennis balls, table tennis balls, golf balls and bouncy rubber balls.

Gravitational potential, chemical potential energy and kinetic energy are also introduced. There is a strong ‘inquiry focus’ in this resource. A concept or idea is introduced at the start of an activity, with extension ideas and activities given for students to discuss and explore further.

Will it float? Why does it sink? What is “flinking”? By experimenting with a variety of objects, recording their observations, and making predictions, students will find the answers to these questions.

Concepts of buoyancy, density and displacement are also introduced. Students can calculate the density of solids and compare the density of liquids, as well as exploring the relationship between volume, mass, and density.

“Everything in food is science. The only subjective part is when you eat it!” – Alton Brown.

Each ingredient in a product formula or recipe adds different functionally. Adding or removing an ingredient can alter the structure, texture, colour, and taste of food. Why do jellies wobble? What is curdled milk? Is popcorn really a seed? Why does heat make corn kernels pop? What is gluten? What does it look like? What does it feel like? What is the difference between baking powder and baking soda? How do you add or remove moisture from food? The activities in this kit allow students to explore the answers to these, and many more questions in a hands-on engaging way. Lots of mess, but lots of fun too!

This resource introduces students to New Zealand’s native forests and the unique plant and animal life found within them.

Students begin by getting to know a tree and the community of living things, in, on and around it. The structure and soundscape of a healthy New Zealand forest is explored using audio files and the dimensions of two of our forest giants, kauri and pōhutukawa, are visualised, measured and compared. Slices of tree trunk are supplied for discussion about how trees store information about their past and the environment in which they grew.

Kauri dieback and myrtle rust are also covered to help students identify ways to minimise the impact these diseases have on the health of our forests. Students get the opportunity to dissect, clean, dry and store seeds and discuss the importance of seeds in the conservation and restoration of forest ecosystems.

What is energy and where does it come from? What is fuel? Where does the energy in fossil fuels come from? Students explore these questions through a series of activities involving careful examination of several fuel samples, hands-on fossil fuel chemistry and creating a model to visualise the formation of crude oil.

The impact of oil spills on the environment is also introduced. Students evaluate the effectiveness of a selection of materials and techniques used to contain and clean up oil spills on land and in the water.

What is energy? Energy is in everything. Energy is how things change and move. It takes energy to drive a car, cook food and play rugby.

Heat energy is the focus of the student activities in this resource, although the many different forms of energy are also introduced.

Why is my white t-shirt cooler than my black one? How does the pot on the stove get hot enough to cook food? Why does my jacket keep me warm? Why do I get hot after running around the playground? Where does heat energy come from? How can we detect it?

It’s all about light! Light bouncing off surfaces and objects in the environment around us, allows us to see.

In a series of hands-on activities using mirrors, lasers, torches, prisms, and coloured filters, students will explore where light comes from, how it travels, what it is made of and how we see colour.

There is also lots of messy fun to be had with paint, as colours are mixed and the characteristics of colour are discussed and explored.

How do scientists prepare for, manage, and minimise the risk of invasive species? New Zealand has a large variety of unique plants and animals, and we need to protect them.

This kit introduces students to some key biosecurity concepts in an engaging hands-on way.

They sort and identify a selection of seed samples, observe a variety of stink bugs, make traps to catch insects and model insect population growth. The kit culminates in the invasion busters board game where groups play a collaborative game that simulates New Zealand’s biosecurity system.

Dirt, water, and bugs! Students learn how to assess soil health, then use coloured sugar to demonstrate how water moves substances through soil and how leaching can occur.

The third activity introduces students to insect classification, through a mihi for an insect they have found in the local environment.

A plant identification activity follows, with species in a measured area identified, counted, and recorded. Students assess the health of a stream catchment, studying the geography of the stream, mapping it and investigating the variety of species it supports.

Do opposites attract? Students experiment to explore the properties of magnets, magnetic fields, how compasses work, and the phenomenon of magnetism.

Using magnets, paperclips, and iron filings, they discover magnetic poles and how magnetism can be used to manipulate metal items.

Following on from exploration of magnets, students see how compasses demonstrate the magnetic pull of earth’s poles. They make a compass, and as an extension, discuss cardinal and ordinal points.

No less than six activities here, with a focus on force, friction, mass, and weight. Students will explore everyday examples of forces using pulling, balancing and friction activities.

The older children can explore the effects of friction, mass, gravity and weight on the motion of a toy car as it moves down a ramp.

Lots of links to numeracy, especially measurement of force, time and distance. Gravity is also explored with extension links to earth and space science.

How tall? How much? How heavy? What time did you wake up this morning? What size is your shirt? Are you feeling unwell? What is your temperature? Why is measurement important? Measurement provides a standard for everyday things and processes.

It is everywhere playing a vital, and often unexpected role, in our daily lives. In a series of hands-on ‘real world’ activities, students explore using standard versus non-standard units of measure, are introduced to the difference between accuracy and precision, learn how to take accurate measurements and the importance of calibrating measuring devices.

Ten digital microscopes – hook them up to your laptops or desktop computers (windows or Mac is fine) via the USB link and explore the world at 50 or 200 times magnification.

The scopes are illuminated by LED lights and can capture images for use in projects. A great collaborative way to use a microscope. Safe to use outdoors as well. (Do not work with iPads, sorry).

Do you know that there are a vast number of minute living things called microbes that inhabit the world with us?

Why can’t we seem them? How small are they? Where are they found? Are they helpful or harmful? Could we survive without them?

This resource gives students insight into the diverse group of life forms that we unknowingly share our bodies with, and come into contact with, in lots of unexpected ways, every day of our lives.

What is a mammal? What is a ruminant? Do cows really eat just grass? How is grass turned into milk? Is cow’s milk the same as milk from humans, elephants, sheep, or whales? Why is milk a nutritious food source? What impact does the dairy industry have on the environment?

Students are introduced to how living things are classified, to grow their own pastures, to make silage, and participate in a lovely, messy hands-on activity that both explores and compares the stomachs and digestive processes of humans and cows. The composition of different types of mammalian milk are evaluated and compared and an on-line supermarket scavenger hunt illustrates the number and variety of milk products available for sale in our supermarkets.

Who thought cows could be this cool?

Nanotechnology is the application of chemistry and physics at a very small scale. This box explores material science and introduces students to nanotech. NZ’s leading scientists from the MacDiarmid institute have joined forces with the HoS resource developers to bring you this exciting box. From polymerisation to crystallisation, hydrophobic surfaces to glow in the dark ‘worms’, this box will enthral and engage students of all ages. Properties of materials are not always predictable and the reactions in the beaker will generate lots of ooohs and aaahs from your young scientists.

This kit explores some of the science that supports our primary sector producers. Students identify and discuss the differences between pests and beneficial insects. The parts of a plant are discussed as well as the effects of pests on plant function. Students have fun doing “squirt science” as they explore droplet size and its effect on spray coverage and density and discuss its agricultural applications. Insect communication is explored using an innovative scent game and these concepts are investigated further with the set of pheromone traps.

This box is bursting with equipment that helps students ‘see’ the structure of plants and flowers. Activities include germinating two varieties of bean seeds, linking plants to food through a simple matching activity and playing the ‘pollination game’. A digital microscope allows students to see parts of a plant that are very small but crucial in its survival. Numeracy and literacy links are very clear, and this is understandably a very popular box with kids of all ages.

Imagine how difficult it would be to live in a world without wheels, stairs, ramps, nails, screws, scissors, knives, doorknobs and doorhandles and pulleys. These are all examples of simple machines – tools that make work easier.

Equipment provided in this resource allows students to identify and explore the simple machines that they see and use in everyday life. The advantage of ‘fluid power’ is also covered with the introduction of pneumatics and hydraulics.

Mountains, valleys, hills, plateaus and plains are examples of natural and distinctive features that appear in landscapes. These landforms come into existence due to natural processess such as erosion, wind, rain and weather conditions such as ice and frost and natural events such as earthquakes and volcanoes. These same processes contribute to the break down of rocks and minerals and the formation of soil, the topmost and thinnest layer of the Earth’s crust. Soil performs many vital functions and without it, we could not survive.

This resource allows students to explore the texture and structure of soils as well as the importance of the relationship between soil and water. Lots of digging, mud pies, soaking wet sponges and hands-on fun!

This engaging kit looks at our place in the solar system, the relationship between our star – the sun – and Earth and explores the components and scale of our solar system. Students make craters in ‘moon sand’ and investigate some modern applications of space travel. Finally, they can explore uses of satellite technology.

Jellybeans and smelly pots? Yes, it’s all here in a box that explores our senses. Students use their sense of smell to identify pairs of identical scents and try to identify what the scents are. In the ‘taste tests’ students are blindfolded and asked to identify one of four flavours of jellybean. This is harder than it sounds! Optical illusions look at the tricks our mind will play on what we think we see and lastly there is an experiment that measures the distance between touch receptors in our skin. Lots of real-life contexts as well as practical numeracy activities.

Acid and base chemistry in the context of foods that students will be familiar with. Test tubes, indicators, colour change and fizzing will have your students engaged from go to whoa. The littlies make sherbet and experience chemical reactions in their mouth. Slightly older students can observe pH paper change colour with the variety of chemicals in their student kits. Staying with the indicator theme they can make their own colour changing liquid using the red cabbage. Neutralisation is explored using baking soda and vinegar.

Fly, float or fall? The definition of flight is explored – and beware, this is harder than it sounds! Students discuss which objects fly and how. Paper planes are of course a must, but we introduce fair testing for the young ones – who can make the best plane? How do we define ‘best’? How can we measure that? Students also make a variety of ‘wings’ and test the best shape for creating lift. Finally, there is a technology challenge for the older students – can they make their pig fly? Great open-ended inquiry learning here.

What is happening beneath our feet that gives rise to the powerful and spectacular forces that cause constant movement and changes in the Earth’s landscape? What causes the Earth’s crust to fracture and break, releasing waves of energy and molten rock (lava) from its interior?

To understand why the surface of the Earth is constantly moving and changing, students are first introduced to the composition of the Earth and its crust. They model the movement of the huge slabs of rock (tectonic plates) that fit together like puzzle pieces to form the surface of the Earth.

Students are given the resources to create, and discuss, different types of volcanoes, volcanic eruptions and identify volcanic rocks.

How healthy is your stream? Many schools have a body of water nearby and this kit provides all the equipment needed to test water quality. From pH, turbidity, nitrate, and flow to invertebrate (insect) guides and their use as ecological indicators of environmental health.

Where is the air? Good question! Students will discover that the air is not ‘empty’ space – a crucial concept when trying to understand wind and clouds. This interactive kit will have the children constructing models to visualise cloud and rain formation and the movement of hot and cold air in the atmosphere. They also get to explore a tornado in a bottle and interpret simple weather maps.

This kit has been designed to enable teachers to see the science capabilities in action.  Thinking is a fundamental skill in science and this kit encourages students to think like scientists in a variety of contexts.  Science can often be magical and mysterious.  Students of all ages will enjoy trying to explain how a mystery tube works, where the rubber band in the ‘splink’ is located and why a rattle back insists on only spinning one way. Meet a range of exciting and colourful critters preserved in resin and get to have a closer look at how easy it is to miss what is going on around us.

This kit also explores some serious environmental issues and leads students to observe, formulate explanations and ask questions about the impact human activity has on the natural world and its resources.

Bumble bees like you’ve never seen them before! Students examine preserved bumblebees focusing on the structure and function of their body parts, they learn about the interesting lifecycle of the bumblebee, their preferred habitat, and compare and contrast the differences between bumblebees and honeybees. By exploring how we see colour they will investigate how flowers have evolved to attract bumblebees and other pollinators. Children observe and discuss the relationship between sound and vibration. And finally, the children will have the opportunity to construct their own bumblebee nest.

Forensic Science II. Building on the success of the ‘Who-Dunnit?’ kit, ESR have partnered with House of Science to bring you this exciting addition to the resource library. Activities include aerosols; ‘blood’ splatter; trace evidence and casting footprints. There is a Set of crime scene scenarios for students to solve using their new sleuthing skills.

Forensic science I. Forensics is hugely popular and so is this kit! Students learn four different forensic techniques: finger printing, handwriting analysis, fibre identification and white powder tests. Once these techniques are mastered, they can solve a crime using suspects’ police information and evidence collected from the crime scene for one of four crimes.

Imagine taking a sample from a river, or stream, and be able to identify all the living things that have passed through it. Sounds a bit ‘scifi’ doesn’t it?  But it is possible! DNA is found in every living thing and is shed as organisms pass through the environment. Each living thing can be identified by a unique pattern of DNA sequence called a DNA barcode.

Environmental DNA (eDNA) can be used as a conservation tool for monitoring both past and present biodiversity. In this kit students explore the composition and structure of DNA and explore its use as a biodiversity monitoring tool. There is also an opportunity to participate in a citizen science project that is monitoring New Zealand’s waterways so better decisions can be made about protecting the environment.

Water, water everywhere! Five activities that thoroughly explore water as a solid, a liquid and a gas. Make ice balls using balloons and watch the children explore the effect of heat, salt and time on the melting process. Students explore surface tension of water droplets, a unique property of water and essential for so many life processes. Evaporation is explored using puddles and mirrors, and students make a model water cycle in a plastic bag. The last activity links social science as students explore freshwater allocation uses and discuss possible effects on natural ecology as a direct result of human interaction.