Stewardship is Where You Are

Energy experiment

Activity 1: Energy Users in My Town

Objective: interview independent energy producers to compare and contrast alternative energies and how they could

Science Skills: Measure, Collect Data, Compare/Contrast, Evaluate

Life Skills: Marketable Skills, Communication

Preparation Activities: Ask youth to bring one of their most often used appliances to the club meeting. Ask parents/guardians to average their kW/volys usage per day from an electric bill. Check the contacts in “It’s All Connected” to make sure they are available and have time to respond to any questions your members may have.

Materials Required: Energy Report (pdf), Kill-A-Watt instructions (pdf), Kill-A.Watt meter (available on loan from Extension Office)

Activity 1:

Step 1:
Check out a kW reader from your Extension office or possibly your local library. Have youth find out how many kW of electricity using one of their favorite appliances (hair dryer, lap top, TV) uses. Record this information for the Energy Report. Ask your parents or guardians to find out the average # of kW used in your home per day. (Study your electric bills.)

Step 2:
Utilizing the connections in “It’s All Connected” identify local alternative electrical energy producers including those that use hydro-power, solar power or wind power. Find out how much electricity they can generate in a given period of time given ideal conditions. Chart these discoveries and identify how much service they can supply.

Activity 2: Making More Hydro-Power

Objective: Build a water turbine that demonstrates how mass and vertical distance can affect power generation

Science Skills: Plan Investigations, Design, Build, Hypothesize, Experiment, Collect Data, Interpret

Life Skills: problem solving, communication

Preparation Activities: gather materials, choose whether to let youth design the turbine as an inquiry or by following directions.

Materials Required:

The Water Wheel:
blower fan blade
An old playing card
1 or 2 wire hangers
pliers/ wire cutters
rubber bands or thin bendable wire
Waterproof electrical tape

The Water System:
gallon jug of water
a water trough (a piece of rain gutter molding)
a large tub
a protractor

Activity:
1) Explain that water can be used to spin a turbine and generate electrical power in a generator. (as per the Explorer activity). Youth can review “Explore More” links on this topic. Ask them: What creates more power in a hydro-electric design? (more rotations)

2) Show the youth the materials for making a water wheel. Tell them: “Our objective is to figure out what to makes a water wheel spin the most. We will design a wheel that will count every rotation with a sound. If you ever rode a bicycle with a playing card attached to the spoke, you are familiar with this design.” You can also show them the photo of the basic water wheel design and the instructions for making the water wheel, depending on how much investigation and creativity you want them to have.

3) Once the waterwheel is set up place it in a tub (or sink). Have the youth pour the water steadily down the trough so that it spins the wheel and ask them to count how many “clicks” the playing card on the wheel makes.
Factoid: One gallon of water falling 100 feet per second can generate about 1 kW of electric power.

4) Ask the youth to figure out how to get more clicks per gallon of water using the tools provided. As them to keep a record of the different attempts they make and precisely what they change (variables) in each attempt. (Hint: use a protractor to measure how steep the water trough is.)

Asking the Right Questions:
What variables can we change to increase the amount of spins the turbine makes? Were there any inefficiencies or flaws in the design that might be improved to increase speed? Where else do you think we can find examples of this design? Where can we find out how much electricity is generated from a larger hydro-electric turbine? What other natural resources might spin a turbine?

Activity 3: (optional) Making Your Own Power

Objective: Building an advanced design of an electrical generator

Science Skills: Use Tools, Build/Construct, Problem Solve

Life Skills: Self Motivation, Problem Solving

Preparation Activities: Visit some of the Advanced Design Links in Explore More. Print images of various finished products to share with youth. These are time intensive projects.

Materials Required: Varies.

Activity: Utilize some of the instructions to build more advanced alternative energy generators. Demonstrate your model through fairs or other public presentation venues.