Clean Energy Topic: Solar Energy

  • Experimenting with Solar Heaters

    Experimenting with Solar Heaters

    An engineering design challenge that has students first building and taking measurements from a predesigned solar water heater, then moving into designing their own solar water heater to beat the performance of the pre-designed one – 3 lessons.

  • Creating the Most Effective Solar Heater

    Creating the Most Effective Solar Heater

    In this activity students demonstrate the ability to evaluate competing solutions to the problem of increasing the heat energy transferred to a vial of water.

  • Solar Car Engineering Challenge

    Solar Car Engineering Challenge

    In this activity students demonstrate the ability to evaluate competing solutions to the problem of increasing the heat energy transferred to a vial of water.

  • Manipulating Design Variables on Solar Heaters

    Manipulating Design Variables on Solar Heaters

    In this activity students demonstrate the ability to evaluate competing solutions to the problem of increasing the heat energy transferred to a vial of water.

  • Making the Standard Solar Heater

    Making the Standard Solar Heater

    In this activity students will learn that sunlight energy can be transformed into other forms of energy and that the amount of sunlight energy captured by an object can be quantified and measured.

  • Renewable City

    Renewable City

    This Renewable City Unit aims to help students dive in and actively explore sustainability, renewable resources, and how they might personally help solve our climate change problem. As students use multiple methods for investigating, creating, and thinking about these critical issues, they will be encouraged to develop pliable minds and action-oriented skills to address climate…

  • Understanding Energy Through Wind Turbines

    Understanding Energy Through Wind Turbines

    In this unit students will be building knowledge on what energy is and how it is harnessed, students will interact with a variety of energy stations to build an understanding on what energy is. From there students will learn about renewable energy and the difference between renewable and non-renewable energy. Students will learn how to…

  • Understanding Science and Engineering Through Solar Power

    Understanding Science and Engineering Through Solar Power

    Students learn about electricity from solar power through building simple circuits, exploring how solar calculators get their electricity, and from designing and testing a solar water pump.

  • Designing A Faster Water Pump

    Designing A Faster Water Pump

    Students use available tools to design and test a solar water pump and apply the engineering design process to refine, test and evaluate their design.

  • Solar Powered Water Pumping

    Solar Powered Water Pumping

    Students make observations and record data about how different materials affect the speed of a solar powered water pump.

  • Optimal and Sustainable: Renewable Energy Revamp

    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,…

  • Making Observations and Recording Data for Solar Powered Water Pumping

    Making Observations and Recording Data for Solar Powered Water Pumping

    Students observe a solar water pump and follow sensemaking prompts to develop an understanding of the system. Students then make observations and record data about how quickly a solar module will drive a pump to move water.

  • A Simple Circuit

    A Simple Circuit

    Students observe a simple circuit and follow sensemaking prompts to develop an understanding of the circuit as a class. Students then draw and label the parts of a simple circuit as well as the direction/path that current is flowing.

  • Solar Boats

    Solar Boats

    Students are led through a comprehensive unit leading them from the basics of energy through to a culminating solar boat engineering design project (9 lessons).

  • Analyze Data and Develop Conclusions

    Analyze Data and Develop Conclusions

    Students have performed the investigation. They will now analyze their data, refer to their initial predictions, and develop their conclusions. Students will have the opportunity to discuss the usefulness of both quantitative and qualitative data forms, determining where each is most useful in drawing specific types of conclusions. This discussion will be used as a…

  • Energy and How We Harness it: Virtual Field Trip

    Energy and How We Harness it: Virtual Field Trip

    In a virtual format, students will explore how energy is generated in different forms.

  • Exploring Energy Stations

    Exploring Energy Stations

    Students explore various forms of energy in order to distinguish between potential, kinetic, and their subcategories in order to look at the concept of transformations.

  • Designing a Renewable City Model

    Designing a Renewable City Model

    Students will use their collective understandings built throughout an entire unit of sustainability topics to develop their own sustainable city. This lesson uses a variety of visual and physical hands on tools for students to make their ideas and climate solutions come to life. Students will wrap up their development by presenting their “Renewable City”…

  • How Do Solar Panels Work?

    How Do Solar Panels Work?

    Students will learn the basics of how a solar cell generates electricity and observe the effects on a small electrical load attached to a solar module under a variety of conditions. They will build upon knowledge gained in previous lessons dealing with energy transformations in order to build an understanding of how the sun’s energy…

  • Solar Powered Calculator

    Solar Powered Calculator

    Students develop an understanding of how light energy is transformed into electrical energy to power a solar calculator.

  • Probes of Prior Knowledge

    Probes of Prior Knowledge

    Students are guided through formative assessments (probes) of their prior knowledge about electricity

  • Setting Expectations for Science and Engineering Projects

    Setting Expectations for Science and Engineering Projects

    Students explore the ground rules for science discourse and how they will share their thinking about science concepts

  • Adrift in a Sea of Plastic

    Adrift in a Sea of Plastic

    Students will explore the phenomenon of plastic garbage islands and develop engineering solutions to address the problem. Students will use 3-D modeling and 3-d pens and printers to create their model solutions, and conduct research on the problem and present on the problem and their solution (4 lessons).

  • Design and Engineer Solutions

    Design and Engineer Solutions

    This lesson is designed to span 9 days with 50-minute sessions. The students will use a Design and Engineering Journal to guide them in the design and engineering process. In small groups they will use the research from lesson 2 to formulate solutions to the problem of plastic trash islands. The students will build models…

  • Solar Updraft Towers

    Solar Updraft Towers

    Students will combine research, direct observations, and hands on investigation to lead them into an engineering design project involving the construction of a solar updraft tower (5 lessons).

  • Learning About Solar Updraft Towers

    Learning About Solar Updraft Towers

    This lesson helps students learn about solar updraft towers being planned and built around the world to help solve the energy crisis by using unlimited power from the sun. This will provide real world context to the engineering challenge they engaged in during the previous lesson. A video is shown to the class; then students…

  • Let’s Build Our Wind and Solar Energy Toy

    Let’s Build Our Wind and Solar Energy Toy

    Students will combine what they learned in previous lessons using their investigations of convection-related phenomena to design a device that will convert light energy from the sun into thermal energy and utilize the resulting convection currents. Their primary objective will be to design a device that uses energy from the sun when placed on a…

  • Where Does Energy Go?

    Where Does Energy Go?

    This lesson consists of six demonstration activities that show examples of ways in which water and air absorb heat to transfer energy from one place to another. These demonstration activities act as unique phenomena in which students can generate questions to lead subsequent investigations with each activity in learning centers. Through gaining content from investigations…

  • Informative Writing: Where Does Energy Come From?

    Informative Writing: Where Does Energy Come From?

    This lesson is a non-fiction research and writing project, which includes a differentiated choice menu and list of ideas for publishing the completed project. Each student will choose one of ten energy sources to research, including coal, natural gas, petroleum, propane, uranium, biomass, wind, geothermal, hydropower and solar. They will write a report on the…

  • Robotic Sunflower

    Robotic Sunflower

    Students will build electronics and programming knowledge to build a robotic sunflower which tracks the sun. Students will utilize multimeter readings, understanding resistors and circuits to program the multi-axis movement with Basic Stamp.

  • Integrating Solar Power

    Integrating Solar Power

    In this lesson, students will integrate a photovoltaic module into an ongoing robotic sunflower that will track the sun with 2 degrees of freedom.

  • Dual Axis Light Tracking

    Dual Axis Light Tracking

    In this lesson, students will take a light tracker with two degrees of freedom. The axis of rotation will be about the horizontal and vertical.

  • Creating a Light-Tracking Servo

    Creating a Light-Tracking Servo

    In this lesson, students will synthesize their Basic Stamp controlled Servo (see previous lesson in unit) for light metering and Servo control. This lesson walks students through the process of designing a Servo controlled by two photoresistors that track a light source.

  • Controlling a Servo

    Controlling a Servo

    In this lesson students will learn how to control a servo using the Basic Stamp. Then students will combine the photoresistor from the previous lesson with the servo to create a light controlled servo. It is recommended this lesson is used in sequence.

  • Measuring Voltage Using A Microcontroller

    Measuring Voltage Using A Microcontroller

    In this lesson students will be introduced to series circuits, resistors, a photoresistor and a microcontroller. There’s a lot here, but it boils down to making a voltage divider circuit and measuring the voltage at different points. A second circuit includes an RC component. Teachers can edit this down to just a photoresistor if time…

  • Collect Data and Compare Performances of Different Boat Designs

    Collect Data and Compare Performances of Different Boat Designs

    Students will race the solar speedboats, airboats, and surface submarines and then compare the performance results and of the various types of solar boats made by the class. Students will compare and contrast forces acting on the system by examining the results of the airboat, speedboat and surface submarine races.

  • Solar Boat Science Investigation & Building Solar Boats

    Solar Boat Science Investigation & Building Solar Boats

    Design a science investigation to test a solar speedboat, airboat, and surface submarine. Students will use the “Planning an Investigation Template” in order to determine their motivations for designing a solar boat, make predictions about the outcomes with this design, plan the construction by determining materials to be used in the design, diagram their plans,…

  • How to Measure Output of Solar Modules?

    How to Measure Output of Solar Modules?

    Students will measure output from a solar module before a load is attached and relate it to real world output. They will make these measurements using a multimeter and be able to determine the optimal angle at which their module generates a current flow. This process is meant to reveal to students some of the…

  • What is Energy Transfer?

    What is Energy Transfer?

    Students will continue to build an understanding of the fundamentals of energy through observing and describing a variety of energy transformations and build on their foundational vocabulary for identifying and discussing energy concepts. In this stage of the lesson, students will engage more with examples of electrical energy, both stored and kinetic in order to…

  • Solar Mobile Design Challenge

    Solar Mobile Design Challenge

    This unit involves students learning about transferring solar energy to small motors, exploring the center of gravity and testing light sources (including the sun). The culminating engineering design project gives students the chance to pull together their new learning in order to design a tabletop solar powered mobile (5 lessons).

  • Solar Mobile Design Challenge – Construction

    Solar Mobile Design Challenge – Construction

    This is the culminating hands-on project for the Solar Mobile Design Challenge Lessons, with construction aligned to an engineering design process. Students start by Restating the Design Problem that was introduced to them in the beginning of the Unit. Next, they Brainstorm ideas and Plan out the construction of the mobile. Students research an aircraft…

  • Light Source Efficiency: Exploring Irradiance

    Light Source Efficiency: Exploring Irradiance

    This lesson explores the concept of irradiance by having students use a Vernier Pyranometer. Using the “Light Source Efficiency” worksheet to guide their work, students measure irradiance as compared to the Sun’s irradiance to see what would be the best light source for powering their solar mobile indoors. This can be done as a demonstration…

  • Exploring Center of Gravity

    Exploring Center of Gravity

    Since the concept Center of Gravity (mass) is a key factor in a mobile, students will participate in some activities to help them experience and understand this principle so it can be applied to their final Solar Mobile design. This lesson starts with a teacher demonstration of the discrepant event of a bird that can…

  • Exploring Circuits and Optimum Power

    Exploring Circuits and Optimum Power

    This lesson is an exploratory learning cycle that will give the instructor input as to where students are in their understanding of circuits and also scaffolds student learning. This lesson starts by engaging students by using an Energy Stick. Then, students start by working with small lamps and LEDs to build simple series and parallel…

  • Introducing the Solar Mobile Design Challenge

    Introducing the Solar Mobile Design Challenge

    This lesson is aimed to engage students and build excitement for their future engineering design challenge of building the fastest Solar Powered Mobile. Through multimedia resources, Students will encounter real life solar aircrafts and a room-sized Solar Mobile. Students will then be given the scenario of designing a solar mobile for a Children’s Technology Museum…

  • Simple Solar Tracker Activity

    Simple Solar Tracker Activity

    Students will be shown a working example of a solar tracker and asked to replicate the design based on their observations (1-2 lessons).

  • Solar Sphero SPRK+

    Solar Sphero SPRK+

    This unit incorporates basic programming knowledge and solar energy into an engineering design challenge using Sphero SPRK+ robots. The theme for this challenge centers on the idea of Mars rovers, and the challenges faced in space exploration, specifically remote control of exploration tools and the energy generation needed to power these devices (6 lessons).

  • Final Challenge and Presentation

    Final Challenge and Presentation

    In this lesson, students will navigate through a maze using their SPRK+ in order to reach the solar charging station. Students will redesign their chariot in order to meet the needs of this new maze in order to carry their solar panels to the charging station, providing energy for their rover to continue working. Following…

  • Chariot Engineering Design

    Chariot Engineering Design

    Students will work through the engineering design process to build a chariot for their SPRK+ that will carry their solar panels through a maze to a charging station. Students will draft prototypes, test their designs, and make changes to their design based on the initial success of the chariot.

  • Electricity Fundamentals and Photovoltaics

    Electricity Fundamentals and Photovoltaics

    Students work through a number of solar circuit explorations that culminate in a challenge to charge the Sphero SPRK+ devices with solar panels. In this exploration, students will investigate the requirements of various loads, working toward the voltage and amperage requirements presented specifically by the SPRK+ charging station.

  • Chemical Differences in Emergency Energy Sources

    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).

  • Research and Evaluate the Impact on the Environment and Society of Converting Natural Resources into PV Cells

    Research and Evaluate the Impact on the Environment and Society of Converting Natural Resources into PV Cells

    Students will engage in guided research to explore resource acquisition, material processing, and electricity generation associated with photovoltaic cells. Opportunity for differentiation exists in the level of assistance in guiding the research, the language and reading level of the texts, the depth of research, and the product expected. The lesson plan is developed for assessing…

  • Fuels and PV Cells

    Fuels and PV Cells

    Students will return to the phenomena of energy resources to support safety, health, and comfort in an emergency situation. They will distinguish between how common materials provide energy and develop an understanding of how the atomic and molecular structure of the resource differs and leads to different optimal applications of the resource in an emergency…

  • Solar Battery Charging

    Solar Battery Charging

    Students will become familiar with circuits, cells, batteries, and photovoltaic cells, then plan, build, test, modify, and re-test a small solar battery charger designed to maintain batteries from a particular device.

  • DC to AC to DC Efficiency

    DC to AC to DC Efficiency

    This lesson will continue to deal with efficiency of USB charging devices, but this time we will be using an inverter in order to create AC voltage from a battery pack, and then use a standard AC charger (what you would plug into the wall) to charge a USB device. Students will continue to use…

  • Biolite – Fire to Phone Charging

    Biolite – Fire to Phone Charging

    This lesson continues to look at the efficiency of USB charging devices, but this time we will be using a commercially available camping stove that uses heat to create electricity in order to charge a phone. This is the Biolite stove that exploits the Peltier Junction in order to generate an electrical current. Students can…

  • Activities and Assessment of Vocab and Units

    Activities and Assessment of Vocab and Units

    This foundational and important lesson helps prepare students to efficiently collect energy data independently in the remaining sections of this unit as well as increase the longevity of the equipment used throughout. Additionally, students build their energy literacy aroud Circuitry, Electrical Energy, Energy Efficiency, Energy Fundamentals and associated units and formulas.

  • Electrical Energy and Solar Module Efficiency

    Electrical Energy and Solar Module Efficiency

    Students will check the effiency of solar modules using tools to obtain values that are commonly used evaluate energy efficiency of solar modules. Students will conduct their own research to derive the terms they will need to calculate a power/area ratio, and check that calculation with a pyranometer (if available). Calculations and practices that students…

  • Exploring Buck and Boost Converters

    Exploring Buck and Boost Converters

    This lab uses a variety of voltage conversion devices to output 5 Volts, the requirements for a USB charger such as for a cell phone. Students will take data on these devices and calculate, graph and compare efficiencies of different devices. Devices used in this lab are buck converters, which lower the input voltage and…

  • Designing a Solar Phone Charger

    Designing a Solar Phone Charger

    This is the culminating activity for the unit “Off the Grid.” Students will be given some restricted parameters around which to design a solar powered battery operated phone (or other USB device) charger. Included at the end of this lesson is a written assessment for the entire unit.

  • Off the Grid: Energy Transformations and Efficiency

    Off the Grid: Energy Transformations and Efficiency

    Students are led through the basics of complex circuit building, including the use of buck and boost converters, converting AC to DC and back, with the ultimate goal of designing and building a solar cell phone charger. Involves learning circuit diagramming and calculating efficiencies of various circuits and comparing based upon measurements (7 lessons).

  • Illuminate Me: Merging Conductive Sewing, Technology, and Solar Power

    Illuminate Me: Merging Conductive Sewing, Technology, and Solar Power

    Students will design and build a wearable circuit using a microcontroller and incorporating solar power into a wearable garment project by recharging NiMH batteries for a renewable energy battery pack. This lesson is great for a culminating project since it integrates three major components: sewing circuits with conductive thread, programmable hardware, and energy transformations using…

  • Bioreactor Water Heating

    Bioreactor Water Heating

    Students are guided through the concepts of solar and biomass heating as well as water pumping to design a water pumping system that uses multiple technologies to avoid water freezing in winter.

  • Bioreactor Water Circulation System

    Bioreactor Water Circulation System

    Together we explore the feasibility of using heated water in a bioreactor to circulate water through a trough or pipe system to outdoor water sources from freezing in the winter. This will be done by utilizing a solar water pump and a compost bioreactor. Additionally, students will explore whether such a system could be used…

  • Passive Solar Water Heating

    Passive Solar Water Heating

    Students will utilize milk jugs to understand the how to optimize the sun’s ability to heat the water contained within. By recording their observations and calculating the joules of energy absorbed students will gain understanding of the energy of the sun.

  • Engineering with Renewable Energy: Solar Water Pumping Activity

    Engineering with Renewable Energy: Solar Water Pumping Activity

    Students will learn that energy from the sun can be converted to electrical energy to do work by engineering a solar water pump system and collect and graph data in their investigations.

  • Understanding E-Waste Through Battery Design

    Understanding E-Waste Through Battery Design

    In this unit of multi-day lessons, students will further their understanding of energy, electricity, and basic circuits by focusing on batteries and e-waste. Students will build on their existing knowledge of energy, exploring how it is stored and used in everyday life, as well as the role of batteries in energy systems. Hands-on experiments with…

  • Engineering Clean Energy For Our Community

    Engineering Clean Energy For Our Community

    Students will explore how different clean energy methods can power a motor. Using the engineering design process students will evaluate each energy source and relate it to e-waste concepts from previous lessons. They will learn about wind turbines and design a wind turbine. They will learn about solar power and design a solar boat. They…

  • Solar vs Wind Energy Unit

    Solar vs Wind Energy Unit

    Students learn the fundamentals of energy transformation and vocabulary, electrical circuits, explore energy usage in their homes. Students then explore energy generation, including the use of magnetism and renewable energy sources.

  • Variables Affecting Solar Power

    Variables Affecting Solar Power

    Students will be learn to identify and explain at least three variables that effect the efficiency of photovoltaic cells and students will conduct a scientific investigation to determine which photovoltaic cell configuration will generate the most power.

  • Three Ways to Generate Electricity

    Three Ways to Generate Electricity

    Students will be learn to: 1. Detect the relative strength of magnetic fields at different distances from a magnet, 2. Explain the energy transformations occurring in each part of a circuit and 3. Identify three different methods for generating electricity

  • Reflections with an Engineer

    Reflections with an Engineer

    Students analyze their data from previous lessons and reflect about how solar technology and their structures kept the ground (earth’s surface) cooler.

  • Add Solar Panel Redesign, Rebuild, Retest

    Add Solar Panel Redesign, Rebuild, Retest

    Adding solar panels, motors, and fans to existing student built structures; students will observe temperature changes on the ground below their structure.

  • Keeping it Cool with Solar Unit

    Keeping it Cool with Solar Unit

    Students will learn about cool and warm temperatures and apply their understanding to build a playground structure that keeps us cool on a hot day. Students are introduced to the engineering design process as they modify their designs.

  • Structure Test

    Structure Test

    Utilizing thermo infrared thermometers and student built structures from Keeping it Cool with Solar Build Time, students analyze how structures change the suns affect the Earth’s surface.

  • Build Time

    Build Time

    Building the structures designed during Keeping it Cool with Solar: Design Time. Students use the phenomena of Engineers build with triangles to inspire their structures to create shade.

  • Design Time

    Design Time

    Students will learn the phenomena of how engineers use triangles to build. They will design their own structures to create shade.

  • Making Shade

    Making Shade

    Students will observe the phenomena of how trees make different types of shade and use different types of paper to create different levels of shade.

  • Hot Spot/Cool Spot

    Hot Spot/Cool Spot

    Students will investigate the phenomena of melting ice and solar heat on the playground