After briefly learning about wind turbines and how they generate power for the grid, students will create their own windmills in class. Students will then apply ratio reasoning to figure out how many homes (on average) a windmill can power. How do wind turbines get power into our homes? How many homes can a wind turbine power?
Students will have to read the assigned articles and video first to get an idea of what a power factor, watt, and the power grid is. Next, they will conduct an experiment of three different light bulbs to determine what their power factor is, the temperature, and the amount of watts being used. The students will have to learn how to use a device safely to record all of this. They will have to determine which lightbulb is the most effective for the power grid. Once the students have learned about the power factor, they should use their prior knowledge to graph a cosine function.
Students will learn about the Power Grid and how it is used to produce electricity to their house. They will learn the different components of the grid and then manipulate the grid with TCIPG. Once the students learn how the grid works, they will build a power grid with their partner with squishy circuits, batteries and LED Lights.