Yes

Pokémon’s complicated world evolved out of its creator’s childhood love of the Japanese custom of collecting and training insects. He observed improbable creatures and the domains they inhabited.

You have been learning physics since you were a baby. From mastering gravity to walk to your first static electric shock, nature has been a consistent teacher.

Construct experiments that allow you to manipulate, measure and master forces at work. Tops and a gyroscope to feel momentum. A pendulum to make magnets dance. A marble relay to disrupt equilibrium. A switch to reverse the flow of electric charges. New ways to blow and spin to make waves.

Put a creative twist on each experiment and share it with your group.

The art of Henri Matisse (1869-1954) illustrates the power of persistence and invention. He was never afraid to change.

Paint in the bright colors that overtook the caution of his formal training. Collage: compose images with paper scraps and cuttings. Sculpt the goldfish he loved, and dancing figures. Construct a small window of light and color after his stained glass treasures. Cut the paper figures that blend the spirit and simplicity he turned to late in life.

Cut a paper dancer to join your group in a performance that will unite all your screens.

Pirates were bandits, yes. But they were also sailors who had to know how to maintain and sail a ship. Pirate crews were drawn from many ports and learned to work together. They adopted Codes of rights and rules.

Construct and captain your pirate ship. Sand and seal your hull. Rig your masts and sails. Outfit a crew of loyal sailors. Prepare your ship to sail in any bathtub, pool or creek. Construct a treasure chest and hunt for treasure.

Adventures for at-home when we can’t yet venture far.

(Adult help needed with painting for one afternoon.)

Minecraft presents some complex engineering challenges.

Log in to our Minecraft: Education Edition world to help create an automated mega-farm. Work together to create the perfect layout and assign tasks. Learn how chemistry can be used to create fertilizer for our crops, and how to design electronic machines to automatically plant and harvest. Build a barn and other nearby buildings to support the farm, and create a sustainable system that can generate goods.

Experience with Minecraft is not required, but preferable.

Long before computers learned to draw for us, inventors create devices to help with the labor of writing, or for producing detail too intricate for human hands.

Build Thomas Jefferson’s tool for copying his signature. Assemble a harmonograph, a pendulum that lets gravity draw for you. Invent a Random Image Generator, which makes art out of mayhem. Construct a Spirograph, a drawing machine that can crank out endlessly varied concentric spirals.

Share your work. We all begin with the same parts. We invent delightful differences.

India is a land of many peoples. Tara Books brilliantly tells this story in books illustrated by artists whose styles capture the distinct traditions of their communities.

Long before modern media, long before there were books, storytellers travelled around the countryside and collected and told stories to entertain, to persuade, to teach. Cultures developed distinct customs.

Construct a travelling stage with props, actors, scenery and instruments to gather and entertain audiences. Hear stories from around the world. Learn ways to create stories, and to remember and tell stories. Draw the curtain on a way to learn about different cultures.

Entertain and be entertained by your group across digital connections that join ancient traditions.

Learn the basics of electronics: the interactions between batteries, resistors, transistors, and other components. Then, apply that knowledge by constructing a series of increasingly-complex projects on breadboards, small devices that allow for quickly and temporarily prototyping electronic circuits.

Artist Naoki Harada designs brilliant Marble Pumps that teach that discipline of discovery.

Construct a Marble Pump (after Harada). Then build the simplest track to produce a continuous flow. Each day learn new tricks - switching tracks, jumping, bouncing, swirling. Invent your own tricks. On Friday, begin again to combine stunts to create a circuit that will be unlike anyone else’s, ever.

Close each day sharing your machine, your successes, your frustrations. Watching and being watched = learning.