If you have been looking for a science program that captures your child’s interest and curiosity your search may be over! Supercharged Science has been a program that has kept my children excited about science and best of all, peaked their curiosity!
Supercharged Science is an e-Science program developed by NASA rocket scientist, University professor and mom Aurora Lipper. Her passion for teaching and helping children fall in love with science has led her to create a program that will have your child “doing science” completely differently to what most of us are used to!
Based on her experience as a scientist and teacher, she encourages parents to teach the subject from the inside out! The child starts lessons with an experiment or two and then lets his/her interests and questions guide them into the text to dive deeper into the concept learned.
The boys made their very own glow-in-the-dark slime!
After using Supercharged Science and seeing how my children respond to it I look back at the science classes I took when I was younger. It’s made me think: it’s no wonder so many children miss out on learning science as an adventure and often times find it boring and irrelevant. Most science classes spend much of their time reading pages and pages of text and do 1 or 2 experiments. The way Aurora Lipper has my boys learning science seems so much more natural and encourages thinking, and best of all, asking questions!
The online program includes over 1,000 videos on hundreds of science topics. The videos are of Aurora explaining concepts and taking the child, step-by-step, through hundreds of experiments!
The units covered include:
- The Scientific Method
- Mechanics
- Motion
- Matter
- Energy
- Sound
- Astrophysics
- Chemistry
- Light
- Electricity
- Magnetism
- Alternative Energy
- Thermodynamics
- Electronics
- Life Science
- Biology
The units give you the opportunity to go wide and deep! They each cover:
- Introduction where Aurora talks about the concept and theory that will be covered in the unit. The text also goes into a bit of the history and theory. Very short and general.
- A link to a recorded live tele-class on the topic.
- A lesson plan providing the parent a bird’s eye view of the material in the unit including:
- key vocabulary words
- materials needed for experiments
- objectives of each lesson in the unit
- and much more!
- Text the child can read for more information and to go deeper, especially after doing the experiments!
- Exercises and Quizzes you can use to review the material. Answer to these are included in the parent’s lesson plan.
All of the components of each unit has the option of being viewed as a PDF file. This is an excellent option for older children that may want to keep a binder, highlight text, keep notes, etc.
Our Experience
My children always prefer hands-on learning. I follow Aurora’s recommendation for younger students and always spend more time on experiments. When we first got the program and I asked my children what experiments they wanted to try first they of course, asked to do something “gooey and slimy!”. So we tried the “Glow-in-the-dark Slime” (see pic above). I had happy scientists that day!! This experiment set the tone for the next few weeks 
My boys tried several other experiments, including:
- Presidents Underwater: Finding out how many drops of water a penny can take without overflowing.
- Magnets: We made a couple of magnets dance! We also learned how water is diamagnetic!
- Pendulums: 3 Pendulums of different lengths. How many swings does each take in 10 seconds.
- The boys and Papi started making a hovercraft…still missing a key component. We will be posting up a video as soon as it’s done!
- Click on image below for more information on our experiments!
We have used Supercharged Science in the past, and our favorite experiment so far was when we crushed a pop can, using only water!
In the past few weeks we spent some time going over the material in the unit study covering “the Scientific Method” and tried to use it during the experiments that we tried.
It was fun having the boys reason through the experiment, put their hypothesis into words and even share different things they think they should try to make the experiment work better. I could see their brains working! 
Pros
- The curriculum covers a WIDE range of topics and gives you the option, depending on the age and interest of the child, to go as deep as you would like!
- Aurora is sensitive to the different learning styles and developmental abilities of each child. She makes the program flexible so that it fits every child and suggests alternatives. An example: If your child is too young to write and keep a scientific journal, she suggests drawing and/or recording verbal thoughts. She encourages me to stay focused on my main goal, which is to introduce my kids to science and make it fun!
- Customer service is EXCELLENT! For each lesson and experiment you can post questions and comments. She responds with answers and great suggestions, making her program very interactive! I CAN TELL SHE LOVES TO TEACH!
- The site can see overwhelming, but there are a lot of parental resources (i.e. videos, articles, lesson plans) to walk you through and make sense of it.
- The program is great for families. The classes are age-inclusive. I was able to include my three older boys in the activities.
Cons
- Though the program is through and robust, the cost of the program can be prohibitive for many homeschool families.
We have been using Supercharged Science in the past as our main curriculum and sometimes as a supplement. We loved getting the chance to review it and share with other families how much we enjoy it! This is a program that is worth trying!
Do You Want to Learn More About Supercharged Science?
Do you want to see how this awesome program works for your family? Aurora Lipper has made it possible for me to offer my readers a free mini-program! This is a small sample of science activities and projects taken from her e-Science program. Try it free and let me know how you and your kids like it!
And, around the Internet, find Aurora:
- on Facebook
- on Twitter
- follow Aurora on Pinterest, where you will find videos!
- and finally, subscribe to her channel and see her videos on YouTube!
We received a one-year subscription to the complete K-12 program. The K-12 program is a month-to-month subscription that retails at $57/month, and can be canceled at any time. If you have younger children you can order the K-8 section for only $37/month, and can cancel at any time!
When you first subscribe, you get access to the first 7 units, and every month thereafter, you get 2 additional units. If for any reason you would like to try a later unit, you can simply send an email and it will be made available to you.
Other families on the Crew were also blessed with the opportunity to review this program. Read about their experiences here!
Educating for Life 
A very thorough review! Thanks for sharing this.
Regards,
Mary
Thanks, Mary! This was a fun one!