Science word search: atoms, cells and experiments

Play a science word search with 72 terms from physics, chemistry, biology and earth science: ATOM, ENZYME, MAGNET, FOSSIL, HYPOTHESIS and more, twelve per 12×12 grid. It works as a classroom warm-up or a quick break. No app, no sign-up, no interstitial before play; it works offline and can be played entirely from the keyboard.

How to play the science word search

1. Twelve science terms are hidden across, down or diagonally, and any of them may read backwards.
2. Drag from the first letter to the last, or tap both in turn.
3. A correct find is banded in colour and struck off; wrong picks are ignored.
4. Hint marks the first letter of a word you have not found.
5. Switch to a 15×15 grid in Settings to fit 18 terms, including more of the long ones.

Science word search strategy

Science vocabulary is a gift to a word searcher, because it is full of letters that ordinary fill rarely produces, and many terms are long enough to spot from across the grid.

Start with X, Y, Z and Q

OXYGEN and EXPERIMENT have an X; ENZYME has both a Z and a Y; EARTHQUAKE has a Q and a K; HYPOTHESIS and PHYSICS have a Y. Find one of these letters and the word around it is nearly always the term you want.

Watch the shared endings

Several words share a tail. BIOLOGY, GEOLOGY and ECOLOGY all end in OLOGY; ELECTRON, PROTON and NEUTRON end in ON; HYDROGEN and NITROGEN end in GEN. When two of them are in the same grid, a matching tail is not enough, so confirm the first letters before you drag.

Long terms first

THERMOMETER (eleven letters) and EARTHQUAKE, MICROSCOPE, EXPERIMENT and HYPOTHESIS (ten each) take up most of a line on a 12×12 and are easy to see once you look for them. Finding them first clears space. The four-letter terms, ATOM, CELL, GENE, ACID, IRON and DATA, are the ones to sweep for at the end, row by row.

Words in the science word search

The science list has 72 terms, chosen so that anyone with a few years of school science will know them all. They range from four letters (ATOM, CELL, GENE, MASS, ACID, ROCK, LENS, HEAT, DATA, IRON, WAVE) to THERMOMETER at eleven, with six- and seven-letter words such as PROTEIN, MAGNET, CRYSTAL and GRAVITY the most common.

Physics brings FORCE, MOTION, FRICTION, DENSITY, LASER, PRISM and SPECTRUM. Chemistry brings the particles (ELECTRON, PROTON, NEUTRON, NUCLEUS) and nine elements, from HYDROGEN and HELIUM to COPPER and CHLORINE. Biology has GENE, PROTEIN, BACTERIA, VIRUS, FUNGUS and EVOLUTION, and earth science FOSSIL, MINERAL, VOLCANO and EARTHQUAKE. The lab bench gets its own corner, BEAKER, FLASK, PIPETTE and MICROSCOPE, and the method words HYPOTHESIS, THEORY, EXPERIMENT and FORMULA round it off.

Watch the doubled letters: PIPETTE has both a PP and a TT, and FOSSIL a double S. THERMOMETER also appears in the weather theme, and TELESCOPE, ORBIT and PLANET in space.

Stats, hints and printables

The timer pauses when the tab is hidden, and Science stats (played, won, win rate, best and average time) stay in this browser. The first two hints are free; once ads are enabled, more cost a short ad or a 30-second wait. Every grid has a code such as A7K3Q to replay or share, and the printable page makes science sheets.

Plays anywhere, no app, no account

The science grid fits a classroom tablet or a phone, and each letter is a labelled button that can be reached with the arrow keys. Tidy Puzzles runs entirely in your browser: there is no app to install, no account to create and no interstitial before you can play. After the first visit the game also works offline, because each puzzle is generated on your device from a seed. Every board can be played with the keyboard alone, on a phone or a desktop, and your stats and unfinished puzzles stay in this browser rather than on a server.