Clean Energy Topic: Power Grid
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STEP: Smart Grid and Energy
In this muti-day lesson, students will explore smart grid technologies and energy concepts through activities focused on energy consumption and an introduction to green jobs.
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Reinventing the Wheel
Students examine the financial and environmental impacts that electric buses could have on their communities.
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Virtual Grid Construction Activity
In this digital activity, Students position power plants, poles, and a variety of buildings on the screen, then tap buildings to draw wires between them and light up their city. Students complete a series of challenges which take them through the historical development of the electrical grid, with simulated storms demonstrating the value of having…
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Electric Vehicles
This lesson teaches students about the energy needed to move objects and, in particular, how cars get their energy to travel. Students take part in a problem-solving exercise about charging an electric car, which also aims to spark a debate about the different ways cars can be fueled.
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Power Outages and Energy System
Students learn how burning fossil fuels contributes to climate change, leading to more extreme weather and frequent outages. By exploring solutions, students see how communities can adapt, mitigate impacts, and build resilience, empowering them to think critically about energy and climate action.
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Future Needs of the PNW Hydropower System
Students will evaluate the arguments for breaching the snake river dams, and the arguments against the breach. They will assess cost/benefit assessments, stakeholder positions, and possible solutions.
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Electrical Engineering: Why Does the Electrical System Break Down?
This unit, developed through the Ambitious Science Teaching framework, attempts to create cohesive, model-based learning experience for high school level physics students to explore these concepts through the anchoring event of a power outages. They will explore our electrical system from simple circuits and the function of a switch, tracing the electrical energy back through…
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Clean Water Power: Wind, Waves, and Moving Water
This unit strives to answer the question: “How can the power of moving help communities by generating electricity?” Through a variety of lessons centered on the phenomena of the power of moving water, students will develop skills in circuits, model building, and testing. Students will explore issues surrounding clean water, energy, and careers.
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Ecological Interactions Between PNW Keystone Species
Students will examine the decline in chinook salmon and how the loss of this keystone species is impacting the South resident killer whale populations.
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Optimal and Sustainable: Renewable Energy Revamp
In this lesson, students will be challenged with an optimization problem. The fictitious town of Solutionville has decided to replace coal, their current source for electricity, with more sustainable energy sources. In designing Solutionville’s sustainable energy future, students must consider not only the geographic constraints of various renewable energy options–wind energy, hydroelectric power, geothermal energy,…
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Chemical Differences in Emergency Energy Sources
In the context of preparing a disaster supply kit, students develop atomic and molecular models of energy resources, analyze combustion of various fuels and build circuits. They then research and evaluate the impacts of converting natural resources into PV cells. Finally, students engineer a hand warmer that uses an exothermic chemical reaction (5 lessons).
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When the Grid Goes Down and Stays Down
Through an examination of media published in the five months following Hurricane Maria in 2017, students will develop an understanding of the electrical grid, the vulnerabilities of a grid system, and the immediate and long-term challenges of living without an electrical grid. This lesson will lay the foundation for the rest of the unit, establishing…