S&E Classes
Did you know we also offer Pre-K and middle school classes as well?
Contact us to learn more!
2026-2027 THEME: STRUCTURE AND CHANGE
FALL 2026 OFFERINGS
Featured Creatures Grades K-1 or K-2
Explore anatomy by examining the function of skin, hair, feathers, skeletons, and exoskeletons. Discover unique ways animals survive and protect themselves through experimentation and exploration. Create your own habitats for worms and brine shrimp. How do the shapes of teeth and beaks give you clues about what each animal eats? Explore camouflage and bioluminescence and how animals protect themselves.
Jaws and Claws Grades 2-3 or 2-4
Everyone has to eat! What can tooth, beak and claw structures tell us about an animal’s diet and how they live? How are herbivore teeth different from omnivore teeth? What could you swallow if you had a mouth like a snake? Examine different teeth and beaks to find out how to bite, chew, and grind your way through your food. Make a mold of your own teeth and examine the claws of a raptor and bear.
Biological Clues Grades 3-5 or 4-5
In this exploration of biology and anatomy students will investigate bacteria and fungi that live on classroom surfaces by growing them in a Petri dish and then try to identify them. What makes you, you? Explore the role of genes in dominant and recessive traits. Learn about DNA and extract it from cells! Try to identify birds and marine mammals by their calls. Is it a humpback whale or an orca? Examine an owl pellet and try to identify the owl’s major food sources from the bones in the pellet!
Building Big and Small Grades 2-4 or 3-5
Build miniature greenhouses and life-size tipis! In this hands-on series, children will stretch their understanding of what makes structures strong, apply geometry and measurement concepts, and learn new history, vocabulary, and craft skills. Projects alternate between life size structures and scale models. Build new projects such as a castle, pyramid, and car every week, all using our Knowledge Infused Design (KID) process!
Introduction to Coding and Robotics Grades K-1, K-2, 1-2, or 1-3
Big Learning uses the screen-free KIBO robotic system to teach computer coding, logic, and loops. Learn what a robot is and isn’t, and what you have to tell KIBO to make it move. How can you command KIBO to make noise, avoid obstacles, shine its light, dance, and then do it all over again? Start out with learning the basics and add a new module each week such as lights, sound recording, repeats, catapults, distance sensors, conditionals, light sensors, Lego® add-ons, and more.
Lego® Spike Essential Robotics Grades 3-5 or 4-5
Craft Lego® machines and vehicles and learn the physics underlying movements and simple forces. Program your creations using Scratch. Explore all of Scratch and learn to make Sprites. Some weeks students will work on the same project, some weeks students will be able to choose their project. Students will work in pairs with each pair sharing an iPad and complete Lego® Spike Essential Robotics sets.
WINTER 2027 OFFERINGS
Chemistry Detectives Grades K-1 or K-2
Explore solids, liquids, and gases and create new materials from exothermic and endothermic chemical reactions. Use viscosity and density to describe liquids and make your own lava tubes. Experiment with mixtures, solutions, acids, and bases to help solve our gold paper caper, mix a polymer, and make glue from milk.
Chemistry Creations Grades 2-3 or 2-4
Test the saturation point of solutions and learn how to separate liquids using evaporation, chromatography, and absorption. Explore capillary action, create physical and chemical reactions, and use yeast to detect sugars and starches. Examine the properties of mixtures and non-mixing materials, test pH levels of common substances, and make a stretchy polymer.
Chemistry: Lab Science Grades 3-5 or 4-5
Detect and measure invisible matter, test for vitamin C, D, and E and whether vitamins are fat or water soluble. Use Chemistry to solve mysteries, titrate acids and bases, and test flow resistance. Learn how retention factors affect chromatography, and make cheese and goop.
Building Big and Small Grades 2-4 or 3-5
This class is a repeat of fall
Build miniature greenhouses and life-size tipis! In this hands-on series, children will stretch their understanding of what makes structures strong, apply geometry and measurement concepts, and learn new history, vocabulary, and craft skills. Projects alternate between life size structures and scale models. Build new projects such as a castle, pyramid, and car every week, all using our Knowledge Infused Design (KID) process!
Material Investigations (Grades 6-8)
Conduct hands-on chemistry experiments every day. Explore the magic of changing colors, liberating gases, and see how chemical reactions can identify unknowns. Compare exothermic and endothermic reactions, investigate capillary action through chromatography experiments, test various liquids for pH, and build a titration system for determining Vitamin C. Test foods for fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. Discover the world of polymers and have fun with viscosity, solubility, and making home-made play putty in your own mini-lab.
Introduction to Coding and Robotics Grades K-1, K-2, 1-2, or 1-3
This class is a repeat of fall.
Big Learning uses the screen-free KIBO robotic system to teach computer coding, logic, and loops. Learn what a robot is and isn’t, and what you have to tell KIBO to make it move. How can you command KIBO to make noise, avoid obstacles, shine its light, dance, and then do it all over again? Start out with learning the basics and add a new module each week such as lights, sound recording, repeats, catapults, distance sensors, conditionals, light sensors, Lego® add-ons, and more.
Lego® Spike Essential Robotics Grades 3-5 or 4-5
This class is a repeat of fall. In some cases, we can take a mix of new and continuing students.
Craft Lego® machines and vehicles and learn the physics underlying movements and simple forces. Program your creations using Scratch. Explore all of Scratch and learn to make Sprites. Some weeks students will work on the same project, some weeks students will be able to choose their project. Students will work in pairs with each pair sharing an iPad and complete Lego® Spike Essential Robotics sets.
SPRING 2027 OFFERINGS
Layers Grades K-1 or K-2
Create a model of earth’s core, mantle, and crust. Use a puzzle to learn about plate tectonics and explore volcanos. Create a mini-habitat for spiders, a model of sedimentary rock creation, and examine the properties of other rocks. Observe clouds and learn to classify them, create a model of the water cycle, and learn how fossils were made by making your own fossil impression.
Rocky Road Grades 2-3 or 2-4
Examine minerals, geodes, sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks. Learn how streak tests, Mohs hardness measure, and solubility can help identify minerals. Test how soil types impact erosion. Make models of clastic and biologic sedimentary rocks and the layers of our planet earth. Observe how acid rain affects rocks and building materials. Explore plate tectonics, lava caves, stalagmites, and stalactites and begin your own rock collection!
Climatology: Wild Weather Grades 3-5 or 4-5
Life on earth is an adventure! Students learn how meteorologists measure weather phenomena and then build their own simple instruments for measuring wind, air pressure, temperature and other aspects of weather. They become real storm chasers and investigate the properties of Earth’s “wild weather” and changing weather patterns including the el niño phenomenon, atmospheric rivers, ocean warming, and volcanic eruptions. They also chart how temperatures have impacted insect, animal, and plant habitat ranges throughout history.
EcoKID Grades 2-4 or 3-5
Each week young ecologists design and construct amazing habitats and explore plant and animal life cycles. Unlike our science classes, where students work on several activities each week that support the class theme, students in ECO-Kid take a more in depth look and work on one project a week. Over the course of the session they will create a nesting cache, a grass scape, a wick-fed farm, and a salt water habitat for their own brine shrimp, among other projects. This program introduces students to the themes of sustainability, extinction, and biodiversity using our Knowledge Infused Design (KID) process.
Introduction to Coding and Robotics Grades K-1, K-2, 1-2, or 1-3
This class is a repeat of fall and winter. Students are free to repeat with the understanding that the teacher will be repeating the weekly lessons while continuing students may use the more advanced modules from week one rather than waiting for them to be introduced.
Big Learning uses the screen-free KIBO robotic system to teach computer coding, logic, and loops. Learn what a robot is and isn’t, and what you have to tell KIBO to make it move. How can you command KIBO to make noise, avoid obstacles, shine its light, dance, and then do it all over again? Start out with learning the basics and add a new module each week such as lights, sound recording, repeats, catapults, distance sensors, conditionals, light sensors, Lego® add-ons, and more.
Lego® Spike Essential Robotics Grades 3-5 or 4-5
This class is a repeat of fall and winter. In some cases, we can take a mix of new and continuing students.
Craft Lego® machines and vehicles and learn the physics underlying movements and simple forces. Program your creations using Scratch. Explore all of Scratch and learn to make Sprites. Some weeks students will work on the same project, some weeks students will be able to choose their project. Students will work in pairs with each pair sharing an iPad and complete Lego® Spike Essential Robotics sets.