In this three-week unit students learn to understand how technologies such as windmills and solar panels use mechanical and electrical engineering to provide clean energy. By building and testing easy-to-assemble solar cars, students begin to understand gear ratios and speed of rotation. After racing their solar cars, they use the collected race data to graph distance versus time and to calculate slope. Before leaving solar energy, they are challenged to create a four-wheel-drive solar car. Moving on to wind energy, students learn the basics such as measuring and graphing wind speed, varying blade pitch, and measuring voltage on a wind generator demonstrator. Then, students build and operate their own small wind generator.
Interested in purchasing storage for your STEM Unit? We recommend the addition of two Standard Gray Bins, two Large Blue Bins, and one Shallow Red Bin to help make storing your STEM Unit supplies a breeze!