Renewable Energy Projects
In this section I am including a few activities that I have created in order to highlight alternative methods for generating electricity. If we can encourage students to think about how we "fuel" our cars or "power" our homes, maybe we might just be able to inspire a few of them to develop the next generation of car or electricity production. Need to move away from fossil fuels and the sooner the better!
What a great way to finish off the school year! Create the most efficient solar oven and make smores, too!
Getting students to have fun with renewable energy projects may just lead to bigger and better projects in their futures.
Transportation is highly reliant upon fossil fuels and a major producer of carbon dioxide. Why not challenge your students to find a way to power a car with something other than the traditional methods?
Obviously, we are not using gasoline as our "easy" energy source...that would be the batteries, in this case. Do you have the next Tesla engineer in your classroom?
One of the more common means of using renewable energy to generate electricity is through wind power.
With this activity, you can challenge your students to create the next best wind turbine. I tried to make the evaluation as authentic as possible.
I use this activity with my AP Physics 2 students as we study Thermodynamics.
I originally was thinking of a Stirling Engine contest, but opened it up a little to promote creativity. This is a tough challenge for the students and safety is an issue with the energy source. I used small votive candles.