Our school is very small with only 245 students. Our Science night is combined with a Spaghetti dinner to benefit our "sister" school in Ethiopia. Each classroom does some kind of science display to share on that night The most popluar activity that night is the "egg-drop" contest. You have to somehow "buffer" a raw egg so that it doesn't break when you drop it from a ladder. The kids absolutely love this activity and we have a huge turn-out. I usually buy 1 dozen eggs each for my own children just to practice and perfect before the science night. There are no rules as to how you have to protect your egg. We get eggs in pillows, lunch boxes, you name it, they try it. It's really simple but a great lesson in science! We've found that it doesn't have to be elaborate to make it a good night

Thanks A. Nicole, what a great idea! We only have a junior college in town, but I will check with them. This would help relieve the stress of begging for teachers and parents to volunteer!

I am doing research for a college presentation and noticed this topic.

Our college program (Central Washington University) is a teacher preparation program with a minor in science. Our program administrator has developed relationships with local elementary schools. We put on two science nights for the kids (K-2 and 3-5) where we had activities for the kids. This was a great experience for us to get involved in the community as well as experience working with the kids.

If there is a University in your area (or even a community college with a teacher prep transfer program), I would recommend that you consider partnering with them.

We recently had a Science Fair Workshop during one of our meetings. The Science Fair committee came down and did a little experiment and then offered links to ideas for easy experiments.

Another thing is part of our after school enrichment program offers something called Wizards Academy. They do experiments like volcanoes, making ice cream, mixing liquids etc. The teacher comes dressed like Harry Potter and the kids love it. Good luck.

Thanks! I'm just trying to think of things to do that maybe people wouldn't normally do at home. I do science experiments with my kids, but I know lots of people don't want the mess or the hassle of getting all the supplies. I think I could easily come up with a dozen or so ideas. I'm thinking of hitting up some of the more science oriented teachers too.

In the past, our school has done a Science Nights in different ways. We have a local Science Museum, and they have an outreach group where one of their reps comes in a does a 20 minute presentation, then has about 20 different experiments that the kids can play with. In addition, we have had science nights when we offered two or three different experiments for the kids to try, and on the science night they bring their creations to the school to have them tested (easy things like paper airplane flights, "egg drops" where they wrap an egg in some sort of protective covering and then drop it to see if it survives, parachute drops, etc.). These nights were always well received.