  We describe a simple, low-cost experiment and corresponding pedagogical
strategies for studying fluids whose viscosities depend on shear rate, referred
to as non-Newtonian fluids. We developed these materials teaching for the
Compass Project, an organization that fosters a creative, diverse, and
collaborative community of science students at UC Berkeley. Incoming freshmen
worked together in a week-long, residential program to explore physical
phenomena through a combination of conceptual model-building and hands-on
experimentation. During the program, students were exposed to three major
aspects of scientific discovery: developing a model, testing the model, and
investigating deviations from the model.
