Energy

Students create their own anemometers—instruments for measuring wind speed. They see how an anemometer measures wind speed by taking measurements at various school locations. They also learn about different types of anemometers, real-world applications, and how wind speed information helps engineers...

Students design and build a model city powered by the sun! They learn about the benefits of solar power, and how architectural and building engineers integrate photovoltaic panels into the design of buildings.

Students learn about energy flow in food webs, including the roles of the sun, producers, consumers and decomposers in the energy cycle. They model a food web and create diagrams of food webs using their own drawings and/or images from nature or wildlife magazines.

Student pairs experience the iterative engineering design process as they design, build, test and improve catching devices to prevent a "naked" egg from breaking when dropped from increasing heights. To support their design work, they learn about materials properties, energy types and conservation o...

Students use potatoes to light an LED clock or light bulb as they learn how a battery works in a simple circuit. They also learn how chemical energy changes to electrical energy and get a better understanding of current, voltage and resistance concepts.

In this lesson, students are introduced to the five types of renewable energy resources by engaging in various activities to help them understand the transformation of energy (solar, water and wind) into electricity. Students explore the different roles engineers who work in renewable energy fields ...

Students examine the existence of sound by listening to and seeing sound waves while conducting a set of simple activities as a class or in pairs at stations. Students describe sound in terms of its pitch, volume and frequency. They use this knowledge to discuss how engineers study sound waves to he...

Student groups rotate through four stations to examine light energy behavior: refraction, magnification, prisms and polarization. They see how a beam of light is refracted (bent) through various transparent mediums. While learning how a magnifying glass works, students see how the orientation of an ...

Student groups conduct a scientific experiment to help an engineering team determine which type of insulation conserves the most energy—a comparison of newspaper, wool, aluminum foil and thin plastic. They learn about different kinds of insulation materials and that insulation prevents the transfer ...

Student groups conduct a scientific experiment to help an engineering team determine which type of insulation conserves the most energy—a comparison of newspaper, wool, aluminum foil and thin plastic. They learn about different kinds of insulation materials and that insulation prevents the transfer ...

In this introduction to light energy, students learn about reflection and refraction as they learn that light travels in wave form. Through hands-on activities, they see how prisms, magnifying glasses and polarized lenses work.

In this introduction to light energy, students learn about reflection and refraction as they learn that light travels in wave form. Through hands-on activities, they see how prisms, magnifying glasses and polarized lenses work.

Students explore how sound waves move through liquids, solids and gases in a series of simple sound energy experiments.

Students explore how sound waves move through liquids, solids and gases in a series of simple sound energy experiments.

Students observe a model waterwheel to investigate the transformations of energy involved in turning the blades of a hydro-turbine. They work as engineers to create model waterwheels while considering resources such as time and materials, in their designs. Students also discuss and explore the chara...

Students learn the history of the waterwheel and common uses for water turbines today. They explore kinetic energy by creating their own experimental waterwheel from a two-liter plastic bottle. They investigate the transformations of energy involved in turning the blades of a hydro-turbine into work...

Introduction to the ideas of energy. Students discuss specific energy types and practical energy sources. Associated hands-on activities help students identify energy types in their surroundings and enhance their understanding of energy.

Student teams investigate the properties of insulators in their attempts to keep cups of water from freezing, and once frozen, to keep them from melting.

Students learn how engineers transform wind energy into electrical energy by building their own miniature wind turbines and measuring the electrical current they produce. They explore how design and position affect the electrical energy production.

Student pairs design and construct small, wind-powered sail cars using limited quantities of drinking straws, masking tape, paper and beads. Teams compete to see which sail car travels the farthest when pushed by the wind (simulated by the use of an electric fan). Students learn about wind and kinet...

Students design and build devices to protect and accurately deliver dropped eggs. The devices and their contents represent care packages that must be safely delivered to people in a disaster area with no road access. Similar to engineering design teams, students design their devices using a number o...

Students build their own small-scale model roller coasters using pipe insulation and marbles, and then analyze them using physics principles learned in the associated lesson. They examine conversions between kinetic and potential energy and frictional effects to design roller coasters that are compl...

This lesson introduces the concepts of momentum, elastic and inelastic collisions. Many sports and games, such as baseball and ping-pong, illustrate the ideas of momentum and collisions. Students explore these concepts by bouncing assorted balls on different surfaces and calculating the momentum for...

Students design and build small doghouses to shelter a (toy) puppy from the heat—and create them within constraints. They apply what they know about light energy and how it travels through various materials, as well as how a material’s color affects its light absorption and reflection. They test the...

Students design and build small catapults to launch candy pieces.

Students evaluate various everyday energy conversion devices and draw block flow diagrams to show the forms and states of energy into and out of the device.

Several activities are included to teach and research the differences between renewable and non-renewable resources and various energy resources. Students work with a quantitative, but simple model of energy resources to show how rapidly finite, non-renewable energy sources can be depleted, compared...

Fact sheets are provided for several different energy resources as a starting point for students to conduct literature research on the way these systems work and their various pros and cons.

In a fun game that uses two colors of beads in a bag, students see how non-renewable resources are depleted while renewable resources continue to provide energy. Student pairs remove beads (units of energy) from a bag (representing a country), year by year, keeping tally of usage. Then they compare ...

Students learn more about the concept of energy conversion, and how energy transfers from one form, place or object to another. They learn that energy transfers can take the form of force, electricity, light, heat and sound and are never without some energy "loss" during the process. Two real-world ...

Students makes sense of kinetic and potential energy, including various types of potential energy: chemical, gravitational, elastic and thermal energy. They identify everyday examples of these energy types, as well as the mechanism of corresponding energy transfers.

Students are introduced to the definition of energy and the concepts of kinetic energy, potential energy, and energy transfer. This lesson is a broad overview of concepts that are taught in more detail in subsequent lessons and activities in this curricular unit.

Student teams design insulated beverage bottles with the challenge to test them to determine which materials (and material thicknesses) work best at insulating hot water to keep it warm for as long as possible. Students test and compare their designs in still air and under a stream of moving air fro...

Students are introduced to both potential energy and kinetic energy as forms of mechanical energy. A hands-on activity demonstrates how potential energy can change into kinetic energy by swinging a pendulum, illustrating the concept of conservation of energy.

Students learn how the conservation of energy applies to impact situations such as a car crash or a falling objects.

Students explore the physics exploited by engineers in designing today's roller coasters, including potential and kinetic energy, friction and gravity. During the associated activity, students design, build and analyze model roller coasters they make using foam tubing and marbles (as the cars).

Student pairs design, build, and test model vehicles capable of rolling down a ramp and then coasting freely as far as possible. The challenge is to make the vehicles entirely out of dry pasta using only adhesive (such as hot glue) to hold the components together.

Students make sense of how potential energy (stored energy) can be converted into kinetic energy (motion). Acting as if they were engineers designing vehicles, they use rubber bands, pencils and spools to explore how elastic potential energy from twisted rubber bands can roll the spools. They brains...

This activity demonstrates how potential energy (PE) can be converted to kinetic energy (KE) and back again. Given a pendulum height, students calculate and predict how fast the pendulum will swing by understanding conservation of energy and using the equations for PE and KE.

Students learn about the definition of heat as a form of energy and how it exists in everyday life. They learn about the three types of heat transfer—conduction, convection and radiation—as well as the connection between heat and insulation.

Students learn how to build simple piezoelectric generators to power LEDs. To do this, they incorporate into a circuit a piezoelectric element that converts movements they make (mechanical energy) into electrical energy, which is stored in a capacitor (short-term battery). Once enough energy is stor...

This lesson focuses on the conservation of energy solely between gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy, moving students into the Research and Revise step. Students start out with a virtual laboratory, and then move into the notes and working of problems as a group.

In this hands-on activity—rolling a ball down an incline and having it collide into a cup—the concepts of mechanical energy, work and power, momentum, and friction are all demonstrated. During the activity, students take measurements and use equations that describe these energy of motion concepts to...

Students learn about the conservation of energy and the impact of friction as they use a roller coaster track to collect position data and then calculate velocity and energy data. After the lab, students relate the conversion of potential and kinetic energy to the conversion of energy used in a hybr...

Students experiment with an online virtual laboratory set at a skate park. They make predictions of graphs before they use the simulation to create graphs of energy vs. time under different conditions.

Students explore heat transfer and energy efficiency using the context of energy efficient houses. They gain a solid understanding of the three types of heat transfer: radiation, convection and conduction, which are explained in detail and related to the real world.

Students are introduced to the physical concept of the colors of rainbows as light energy in the form of waves with distinct wavelengths, but in a different manner than traditional kaleidoscopes. Looking at different quantum dot solutions, they make observations and measurements, and graph their dat...

Students learn and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of renewable and non-renewable energy sources. They also learn about our nation's electric power grid and what it means for a residential home to be "off the grid."

Students learn about how a device made with dye from a plant, specifically cherries, blackberries, raspberries and/or black currents, can be used to convert light energy into electrical energy. They do this by building their own organic solar cells and measuring the photovoltaic devices' performance...

Students are introduced to passive solar design for buildings — an approach that uses the sun's energy and the surrounding climate to provide natural heating and cooling. They learn about some of the disadvantages of conventional heating and cooling and how engineers incorporate passive solar design...

Students learn about a fascinating electromechanical coupling called piezoelectricity that is being employed and researched around the world for varied purposes, often for creative energy harvesting methods. Students explore the use of a piezoelectric generator.

Students learn how engineers design devices that use water to generate electricity by building model water turbines and measuring the resulting current produced in a motor. Student teams work through the engineering design process to build the turbines, analyze the performance of their turbines and ...

Students learn how engineers harness the energy of the wind to produce power by following the engineering design process as they prototype two types of wind turbines and test to see which works best. Students also learn how engineers decide where to place wind turbines, and the advantages and disadv...

Students become familiar with the online Renewable Energy Living Lab interface and access its real-world solar energy data to evaluate the potential for solar generation in various U.S. locations. Through this activity, students and teachers gain familiarity with the living lab's GIS graphic interfa...

Students calculate the amount of solar energy available at a given location and time of day on Earth. They learn the importance of determining incoming solar energy for solar devices.

Student teams design and build solar water heating devices that mimic those used in residences to capture energy in the form of solar radiation and convert it to thermal energy. This thermal energy is next transferred to water (to be used as domestic hot water) in the form of heat. Once the model de...

Students explore energy efficiency, focusing on renewable energy, by designing and building flat-plate solar water heaters. They calculate the efficiency of the solar water heaters during initial and final tests and compare the efficiencies to those of models currently sold on the market (requiring ...

This activity shows students the engineering importance of understanding the laws of mechanical energy. More specifically, it demonstrates how potential energy can be converted to kinetic energy and back again. Given a pendulum height, students calculate and predict how fast the pendulum will swing ...

Students are introduced to sound energy concepts and how engineers use sound energy. Through hands-on activities and demonstrations, students examine how we know sound exists by listening to and seeing sound waves

Students are introduced to various types of energy with a focus on thermal energy and types of heat transfer as they are challenged to design a better travel thermos that is cost efficient, aesthetically pleasing and meets the design objective of keeping liquids hot.