Grade Level: 8th
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Understanding Energy
In this lesson, developed by Coeur d’Alene tribal educators, students explore different types of energy, using the book “Coyote Snares the Wind” as an anchoring story, an interactive game, and hands-on activities.
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A Study of Alternative Fuels
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The Farmer’s Dilemma
Over the course of the previous six labs, the students are exposed to alternative power systems focusing on hydrogen and electricity. This last structure combines all the knowledge students armed themselves with into a comprehensive presentation regarding the future of farming in our area… specifically that of fuels the farm tractor will use to harvest…
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The Cycle Analyst
Students will use a Cycle Analyst to collect data from an electric go-kart and measure the efficiency of the system. The Cycle Analyst can be used on other small electric vehicles such as electric bicycles, scooters and golf carts.
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Hydrogen Cars
Students will discover some properties of Hydrogen and how a PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane) operates. They will work to create their own hydrogen kit car and experiment by measuring its gas production, power output if the fuel cell, and the power requirements for operating the vehicle for one minute.
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Creating an Hydrogen Generator
Students will discover some properties of Hydrogen. They will work to create their own hydrogen generator and experiment by measuring its gas production and amperage used for production.
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Creating an Electric Motor
Students will discover some properties of electromagnets. They will create their own electric motor and measuring its torque by picking up a weight over a given distance and time. With this motor, they will learn how an electric motor works and to troubleshoot for optimum operation.
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Creating an Electromagnetic Field
Student teams will work together to discover properties of electromagnets. They will work together to create their own electromagnets and experiment its strength to pick up paperclips using batteries of varying voltages. With this experiment, they will also learn about series and parallel circuits. Later lessons will require the use of these electromagnets to create…
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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How Can a Dam Affect a River?
This pair of activities explore aquatic food pyramids in the river and reservoir. Inviting students to explore the impact a reservoir makes on a river ecosystem, how that can be studied, and what causes the differences in species observed. This is a teacher recommended lesson by Foundation for Water & Energy Education (FWEE).
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Does this Dam Pass or Fail?
Students conduct Internet research to investigate the purpose and current functioning status of some of the largest dams throughout the world. They investigate the success or failure of eight dams and complete a worksheet. While researching the dams, they also gain an understanding of the scale of these structures by recording and comparing their reservoir…
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Who Makes Decisions About Dams? Stakeholder Role Play
This lesson empowers students to explore the roles of the stakeholders who are at play. Through role-playing, students will learn about the varied opinions regarding the dam removal and will ultimately have to reach a compromise as a class after a mock public forum.
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Evaluating River Restoration Projects
This lesson will introduce the role of the Snake River dams and the impacts they have on the Chinook population. Students will examine the pros and cons of various scenarios that have been presented by research scientists.
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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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Environmental Challenges to PNW Keystone Species
Students learn about the dwindling orca population, and the contributing factors. One of which is the decline of chinook salmon and how the loss of this keystone species is impacting the SRKW populations.
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Hydrogen Through Electolysis
Students learn about Hydrogen production and how it could potentially fit in the future energy landscape. This lesson includes an experiment with electrolysis using easily found supplies. This is a teacher recommended lesson from Energy Information Administration.
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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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The PowerWheel
The PowerWheel is a micro hydro generator—an amazing tool for teaching lessons about energy, hydro-power, and other renewable sources of energy. Students from kindergarten through college can use this tool to charge cell phones, power laptops and more… all from the power of a water faucet! This is a teacher recommended lesson from Educational Innovations.
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Creating a Hydroelectric Powerplant
Students will discover a relationship between amperes and voltage to Watts as a hydro-electric powerplant produces electricity. They will work as a team to create a powerplant and measure the flow and force of electricity. The variables of air pressure will simulate different head pressures as it pertain to simple water dam design. They will…
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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).
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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…
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Engineering 101
This lesson is designed for three 50-minute sessions. The students will engage in multiple mini-engineering challenges to develop their understanding of structures and how to build models. The students will also learn to use the 3D pens to create a 3D object.
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The Problem of Plastic Trash Islands
This lesson is designed for 3 days, 50-minute sessions. The students will watch videos and take 2 column notes to guide independent research. The students will examine different solutions that are already being tried and experimental solutions that have not yet been implemented. The students will research the problem and then develop a Google Slide…
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TinkerCAD: Introduction to 3D Printing
This lesson is designed to span 5 days with 50-minute sections. After the introduction day, each day the students work toward mastery on the TinkerCAD tutorial online to learn how to create printable 3D models. At the end of the 4 days the students will have created a small 3D model to specifications to print…
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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).
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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…
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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…
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Wind Power: A Hands-on Experience
This lesson challenges students to work in teams to design successful turbine blades for the “KidWind Firefly”. The firefly has an LED light that lights up when the students have designed turbine blades that spin effectively. This lesson provides students with hands-on experience in designing turbine blades. This will scaffold them nicely into Let’s Build…
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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…
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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…
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Wave Attenuator
Students will experiment with the basic concepts of motion to electrical energy transformation. Students start by building a series of models that demonstrate the interactions between magnetic and electric fields. Students then apply this background knowledge to design and optimize a solution for wave energy conversion using a wave attenuator (3 lessons).
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Testing a Tidal Wave Attenuator
Students will test the efficiency of the tidal wave attenuator models that they previously built. They will determine variables on their models they can manipulate, such as wire gauge and magnet strength, and measure the effects of manipulating this variable on the success of their design. They will report their findings in a presentation to…
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Building a Tidal Wave Attenuator
This lesson is designed to build upon investigations of electromagnetic energy by applying these phenomena to transfer the kinetic energy moving in waves to electricity by building a wave attenuator.
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Introduction to Electromagnetism
Through a series of goal-oriented activities and research, students will build physical models that demonstrate the interactions between magnetism and magnetic fields as well as interactions between magnetism and electric fields. Students will be challenged to engineer devices that: change a magnetic field using electricity, creating a magnet using electricity, and inducing a changing magnetic…
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Home Energy Consumption
Students will calculate the energy consumption of a set of common household devices based on their operating power rating and then investigate the power consumption of other devices in their homes.
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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).
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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).
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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).
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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…
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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.
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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.
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Mars Exploration Debate
Students will research and then debate about the value of Mars exploration through robotic and/or human missions using a debate structure.
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Sphero Edu Coding
After working on a few Scratch drag and drop programs, participants will transition to Sphero Edu, a comparable drag and drop program for Lesson 2 to prepare to program a Sphero SPRK+ ball to navigate through a maze.
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Introduction to Drag and Drop Coding Using Scratch
Students go through a series of exercises and projects/challenges to gain familiarity with coding, specifically with drag-and-drop coding. Students will look at Scratch, a free introductory computer programming language, which focuses on creative computing. After working on a few Scratch drag and drop programs, participants will transition to Sphero Edu (formerly Lightning Lab), a comparable…
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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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Engineering a Hot Pack
Through a series of inquiry activities, students will discover the properties of the chemical reaction of dissolving CaCl2 in water, the effect of stirring, and of adding baking soda and sodium polyacrylate crystals. Once initial data is collected, students will share preliminary data through the collaborative inquiry gallery walk protocol practiced in Lesson 2, test…
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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…
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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…
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Developing a Model of Thermal Energy, Atoms, and Molecules
Through a series of exploration and inquiry activities, students will explain kinetic molecular theory, atomic, and molecular structures. Students will be challenged to gradually increase the precision of their explanation of molecular-level structures and motion. This lesson facilitates the students’ development of an evidence-based argument through collaboration.
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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…
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Waste to Power
This unit guides students through exploring how humans harness the natural environment to create clean power from anaerobic digestion and its role in clean energy production. Additionally, they will explore solutions that benefit the environment, their communities, and all humanity.
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What Can We Do To Fix This?
Students experiment with creating hydrogen through electrolysis. Starting with the phenomena of the renewable hydrogen infographic students discuss renewable hydrogen’s place in our energy system, careers in renewable hydrogen, and climate change.
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What Are The Costs Of Our Current Use of Power And Waste?
Students use their existing knowledge to share their understanding of the costs of our current systems of power and waste. Using digestion bottles made in Introduction to Waste to Power and Digestion Lab 1. Students learn about renewable methane and how it can be incorporated into the power and waste systems.
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What Is The Greenhouse Effect?
After conducting an experiment to witness greenhouse gas creation. Students learn more about how greenhouse gasses are created naturally and through human activity. Students will discuss how greenhouse gasses help and harm.
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Are We Changing Our Air/Atmosphere?
Using an air scale built by the class, students observe some properties of CO2 and how it affects the air we breathe. Reintroduce the concepts of anaerobic digestion. Students expand their thoughts and knowledge of global warming.
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How Does Carbon Dioxide Affect Our Water?
Using the phenomena of wastewater treatment. Students are challenged to think about how water must be “just right” before it can be used. Through experimentation students are introduced to pH. Students are asked how carbon dioxide affects water both in a sample and in the world.
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How Is Our Wastewater Cleaned?
Utilizing the phenomena of a wastewater treatment facility runway students explore how water is made safe for drinking. Students experiment to understand density using salt and baby carrots. Students put it all together discussing barriers to access to clean water.
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What is Carbon?
Students observe a display of charcoal, wood, and food scraps as they discuss the different types of carbon. Students learn about the carbon element and discuss how human interactions and carbon dioxide levels.
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How Are We Part of the Carbon Cycle?
How does the carbon cycle give us life? Starting with the phenomena photo students explore how carbon breaks down as a part of the carbon cycle. Students reflect on the carbon cycle and carbon sinks.
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Molecular Digestion: From Elephant’s Toothpaste to a Plastic Cow
Exploring the essential questions: “What is a digester? and “How are molecules broken down during digestion?” Students will learn about anaerobic respiration, utilizing the elephant toothpaste experiment, and how our water is cleaned through a virtual tour and optional experiments.
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Introduction to Waste to Power and Digestion Lab 1
Students begin to build their understanding of how waste becomes power with the exploration of waste utilizing the phenomena infographic. Students learn about anaerobic digestion and hydrolysis. The class will perform part 1 of an experiment which will be finished in Lesson 9: What are the costs of our current use of power and waste?
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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.
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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…
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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…
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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.
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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…
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Phone Charger Efficiency
In this lesson students will explore the concept of efficiency, and how to take data in order to calculate the efficiency of various cell phone or USB charging circuits.
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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…
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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.
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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).
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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…
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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.
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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…
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Compost Bioreactor Design
Students will research the science and proper maintenance of composting to create their own bioreactors. Using their research they will adjust their compost for maximum heat production used to heat water.
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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.
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Modeling a Wave Energy Converter
This teacher-designed hands-on engineering activity for grades 7-8 walks you through building a wave energy converter to explore how waves can be used for energy.
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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.
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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.
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Variables Affecting Wind Turbine Power
Students will be learn to identify and explain at least three variables that affect the efficiency of wind turbines and students will conduct a scientific investigation to determine which wind turbine configuration will generate the most power.
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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
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How much Energy do YOU use?
Students will be learn to: 1. Explain the difference between power and energy 2. Proficiently use a “Kill-A-Watt” meter to determine the power and total energy usage of everyday devices 3. Compare the total energy used by common household devices 4. Brainstorm different ways we can conserve electrical energy
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Introduction to Circuits
In this lesson students will learn how to: 1. Create a simple circuit on their own when given the appropriate materials. 2. Diagram the flow of electrons within a circuit. 3. Differentiate between series and parallel circuits.
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Introduction to Energy
Students will be able to name and describe at least 5 kinds of energy, and students will be able to identify and explain simple energy transformations