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Exploring Renewable Energy Resources: Offshore Wind

Student structures created in this unit. From left to right; a KidWind wind turbine, a posterboard with a green space and a blue waterway that has tiny home models incorporated, and a student model of a playground. In the back is a Powerwheel.
Learning Goals

Learning Goals

  1. Creativity and innovative thinking are essential life skills that can be developed. (VA: Cr1)
  2. Designers develop excellence through practice and constructive critique, reflecting on, revising, and refining work over time. (VA: Cr3)
  3. Plan and carry out fair tests in which variables are controlled and failure points are considered to identify aspects of a model or prototype that can be improved. (3-5-ETS1-3)
  4. Conduct short research projects that use several sources to build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a topic. (3-5-ETS1-3)
  5. Define and delimit engineering problems. (3-5-ETS1-A)
  6. Develop possible solutions. (3-5-ETS1-B)
  7. Optimize the design solution. (3-5-ETS1-C)
  8. Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research,
  9. reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W 4.10
  10. Use evidence to construct an explanation relating the speed of an object to the energy of the object. (4-PS3-1)
Materials List

Handouts

Group Supplies

  • 1 Pool noodle (example)
  • 1 Cork (example)
  • 1 Spool (example)
  • 1 Plastic cup
  • 1 Dowel
  • 1 Paper tube
  • 1 Straw
  • 4 Skewers
  • 4 Index cards
  • Washers (example)
  • T-pins (example)
  • Hot glue
  • Scissors or box cutter
  • Box fan
  • Wire strippers
  • Drill
  • KidWind Firefly class pack (example)
  • KidWind Basic Wind Experiment Kit (example)
  • Graph paper
  • Tagboard
  • Cardboard
  • Wood glue
  • Meter for measuring blade speed

Important Links

Lesson 4 of 7 / Time: 3-4 periods of 1 hour

This lesson appears as a part of the following:
– Water Power Implementation Toolkit

After reading about different forms of renewable energy, students explore wind and design mechanisms that capture the power of wind. Lessons are scaffolded from designing windmills that lift weight, to testing and improving firefly blade designs, and finally to building and investigating large wind turbines. Students work to test and improve their designs using a series of three wind power models.
Students also explore the impacts of offshore wind on wildlife.

 

Renewable City

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