Activities

Explore UT is open to the general public with online programming that is accessible to all. Activities specifically designed for K-12 students include an indication of a suggested grade level, denoting the difficulty of the concept or activity presented. Some programs will require participants to join virtual platforms (Zoom, Brazen, etc.). Children who are participating in these programs must be monitored by an adult chaperone (parent, guardian or a teacher) in order to join the virtual platform. Some may require verification that a chaperone will be present in order to register for participation.
 
Anytime

Design a Lava Lamp

Design Your Own Lava Lamp. Create a lava lamp using oil and water. To create the lava lamp, you will learn how a chemical reaction generates the lava lamp effect.

Cockrell School of Engineering Engineering
Anytime

Fun with Optics

Join the Biomedical Optics Graduate Organization (BOGO) to see fun and understandable experiments illustrating different properties of light. Examples of demonstrations will show how certain objects absorb light, how some materials glow when exposed to light, how light can be bent, and more!

Cockrell School of Engineering Engineering
Anytime

Programming Maze Game

Computational engineers often have to solve big problems as fast as possible, but some programs can take hours or even days to find a result. This means that engineers need to think carefully about the code they are writing.  Learn to code by guiding your character through the levels of this online programming game.

Cockrell School of Engineering Engineering
Anytime

Civil Engineering 101

Join us to learn more about Civil Engineering, what we do in ASCE, and how to build a bridge out of popsicle sticks!

Cockrell School of Engineering Engineering
Anytime

Clean Energy for a Cleaner Tomorrow

Sustainable energy storage and conversion technologies are needed to tackle the emerging challenges caused by using fossil fuels and by global climate change. Join Professor Arumugam Manthiram to discusses battery and fuel cell technologies from a chemical and materials science perspective. The presentation will include demonstrations of the construction and performance of a metal-air fuel cell and a lithium-ion battery.

Cockrell School of Engineering Engineering
Anytime

Designing Super Paper Planes

Learn the basic science of air travel and test your engineering skills by creating a super paper plane.  The guide will provide design tips that may help your plane fly farther.  Once you've tested it in flight, you may want to choose to change the design to make it better.  The sky is the limit. 

Cockrell School of Engineering Engineering
Anytime

Protecting the Texas Coast from Plastic Pollution

Learn about nurdles, tiny plastic pellets that frequently turn up along the Texas coast and endanger wildlife, from whales to sea turtles. Jace Tunnell, Director of the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve, will also tell you how you can help by doing a nurdle survey and reporting your findings.

College of Natural Sciences Science
Anytime

Meet Our Underwater Neighbors

In this series of short videos, you’ll meet members of the main groups of invertebrates that live in the ocean—anemones, corals, snails, shrimp, crabs, sea stars and sea urchins. And just for fun, you’ll also meet some of the most popular vertebrates on the 40 Acres: residents of the UT Turtle Pond.

College of Natural Sciences Science
Anytime

Design a Puffmobile

The Challenge: Create a racecar entirely powered by your breath. Setup a racetrack and race with your family and friends. The winner is the Puffmobile that gets across or reaches the finish line first. Huff and Puff and blow to get your racecar to move. Good luck and have fun!

Cockrell School of Engineering Engineering
Anytime

Build a Lung Model

Building a model of the human lungs and diaphragm using balloons to understand how they work. Our lungs are vital to our body's respiratory system and our ability to acquire oxygen. The bottom balloon works like your diaphragm, which is a strong muscle that expands and contracts, causing the lungs to fill with air and then emptying it.

Cockrell School of Engineering Science
Anytime

Edison Lecture Series: Failing Well

Discover how failing at something can also lead to incredible success.  Middle and high school students can see the fun side of electrical and computer engineering through a series of four mini-lectures on this year's topic, "Failing Well." Next you can watch these concepts come to life through fun demos on our "Edison Lecturebank" available on Padlet (https://padlet.com/tc78/aa5lho2qkazid1s6).

Cockrell School of Engineering Engineering
Anytime

The Waller Creek Monster

Discover the Creek Monster Habitat. This 16-foot-wide by 10-foot-tall nest structure serves as a metaphor for habitat, sheltering the creek's benevolent spirit guardian, "The Creek Monster." This project highlights UT researchers and their work with the local environment and creates a space for the community to connect with Waller Creek on campus while focusing on multiple aspects of sustainability.

College of Natural Sciences Longhorn Life
Anytime

Discover how Plants Talk, Move and Feel

Join Greg Clark from the Freshman Research Initiative Cell Signaling team to discover how plants have unexpected abilities to sense and respond to stimuli and "talk with" each other and with animals. Learn how plants sense and respond to changes in their environment and how plants are able to communicate using a chemical language.

College of Natural Sciences Science
Anytime

What’s Cooking?

Take the "Which Nutrition Job Best Fits Your Personality?" quiz and then discover more about nutrition professions by navigating through fun interviews with future Registered Dietitian Nutritionists.

College of Natural Sciences Science
Anytime

¿Qué se está cocinando?

Toma el cuestionario "¿Qué trabajo de nutrición se adapta mejor a tu personalidad?" y descubre profesiones nutricionales que te interesan. Después, ve el video que corresponde con el resultado del cuestionario para ver entrevistas con futuras Nutricionist.

College of Natural Sciences Science
Anytime

Urban Safari

This video tour, an Urban Safari of the UT Austin campus, explores the natural world of our urban spaces and includes common – and not so common – organisms that can be found on campus.  It highlights challenges facing urban nature and spotlights areas where there has been success in encouraging plants, animals and microbes to flourish.

College of Natural Sciences Science
Anytime

Choose Your Own Nature Tour

This virtual nature tour of the UT campus and around Austin utilizes the format of a choose-your-own-adventure game. Players can choose where to go, what to see, and with which systems they want to interact. Along the way, adventurers can discover the variety of ecosystems that exist and the organisms that inhabit them.

College of Natural Sciences Science
Anytime

This is Public Health

Public health professionals are leading the response to the COVID-19 pandemic nationwide. This video presentation will use the pandemic to answer the question “What is Public Health?” and provide high school teachers with resources to help them explore this dynamic and impactful field with their students. Participants will also learn about the UT Austin Undergraduate Public Health Program and meet some of UT Austin’s public health graduates!

College of Natural Sciences Science
Anytime

Mapping Organ Systems

Learn about the human body in this fun lesson on organ systems!

Cockrell School of Engineering Engineering
Anytime

Party Pipeline Adventure

Create a party pipeline that delivers a party snack (marble, marshmallow, ball, cheerio, anything, etc.) to the party people (or animals) who are at least 6 feet away. Use paper, toilet paper rolls, tubing, boxes or anything else to create your pipeline. The pipeline must not have more than a 10-inch change in elevation and must incorporate at least 3 changes in direction.

Cockrell School of Engineering Engineering
Anytime

Light and Crystal: Floating Zone Single Crystal Growth of Materials

Material scientists have a lot of techniques in synthesizing novel materials, and floating zone single crystal growth is one of the most versatile and effective method of single crystal growth. In this demonstration, we will show you what is it like to grow single crystals in using the floating zone method.

Cockrell School of Engineering Engineering
Anytime

DNA Extraction Extravaganza

Ever wondered why you look similar to your parents, siblings, cousins, or grandparents? Ever wondered what makes you unique? Ever wondered what makes something living? The answer to all of those questions is deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA. Learn what makes you unique by extracting DNA from fruits.

Cockrell School of Engineering Engineering
Anytime

Thirst for Power: A Virtual Field Trip

Water and energy are the two fundamental components of a society, and they are interconnected. View the film, Thirst for Power, shot on location across France, California, and Texas, to explore our dependence on water for energy as well as vulnerabilities in our current systems.

This on demand film screening with a digital study guide, Q&A session, and virtual field trip are vailable March 6 through May 31.

Cockrell School of Engineering Engineering