“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”
-Jimmy Dean
Join us in our alternative energy homeschool unit! This unit takes about a week to complete. Our alternative energy unit focused on solar, wind, and water power. We branched into this until after our study on forces and motion. This unit is heavily science based, with four different science experiments that we tested out! If you aren’t familiar with how unit studies work, feel free to read my blog post about them here.
Books and Videos
These are the books that I recommend reading for your alternative energy homeschool unit. If you can find them at your local library, great! If not I have posted links to the read-alouds on you tube:
- “Power up to Fight Pollution” – Lisa Bullard – a great place to start with a book about why we would even want to use alternative energy. Read aloud here
- “Energy Island” – Allan Drummond– A book all about a town with wind power! Catch the read aloud here
- “Running on Sunshine” – Carolyn Cinami DeCristofano – a in depth look at how solar energy works Click here to listen to the read aloud.
- “Kate, Who Tamed the Wind” – Liz Garton Scanlon – fun story about a little girl who tames the wind
You can also watch these videos:
- “What is Energy?” – brief overview of alternative energy for kids
- “Dr. Binoc Solar House” – as you may have noticed, we are huge Dr. Binoc fans, this one is all about solar
- “National Geographic alternative energy sources” – this is an overview of all the types of alternative energy
- “How do Waterwheels Work?” – an in depth look at how electrcity is produced from a water wheel
Alternative Energy Homeschool Unit Projects
In our alternative energy homeschool unit, the first thing we started with (after reading a couple of books on renewable energy and watching the videos) was putting together a craft wheel that I created, diagramming the three types of energy. The diagram we colored, cut out, and attached to the wheel. I then went through and explained each types of energy to the girls.
Next, we started with wind power. We did an activity from another blog about how to make a pinwheel. For this craft, you need a sewing pin with a top, a pencil, a ruler, and scissors, and paper. There is a link on the blog that shows different styles of paper you can print out. You could also easily draw your own pattern! I pre-cut the the papers into 6″ squares for my kids. Then, we put together our pinwheels and talked about how you use your own wind power to make them move.
Wind Boats
The following day, I gave the kids a challenge. I asked them if they could make a car or a boat that was powered by wind. I gave them some basic supplies (toilet paper rolls, styrofoam and paper cups, pipe cleaners, glue, straws, etc). They could use anything they wanted! Both the girls chose boats. So, they cut the cups and added pipe cleaner and paper sails. We tested them in our pool and they both worked! The girls blew on the sails and the little paper cups floated around. This was one of those great projects that instantly gets turned into playtime for the rest of the afternoon. Afterwards, they tried to see if they could alter the boats to get their little toys to float around in the pool! We didn’t quite get to making a wind powered car, but maybe next time!
Alternative Energy: Water and Solar Power
After wind power, we moved onto water power. The girls watched some videos of how people use a water wheel to make things work. My kids really like this video where someone uses a water wheel to roast a rotisserie chicken!
Then, I saw an experiment where you can make a water wheel out of paper plates and cups. All you need for this project is 4-5 small paper cups, two paper plates, and either hot glue or lots of tape! We opted for hot glue, because we always have that one hand. After making the water wheel, we tested in our sink and it worked!
For solar energy, the kids were SO excited to make and cook something in a solar oven. The project was much easier to put together than I would have thought. For this project, you need the following supplies: foil, a pizza box (or another type of closing carboard box), plastic wrap, scissors, and tape. You can find the full experiment here.
The solar oven took about 15 min to put together. We decided to try s’mores in it. The s’mores take between 30-60 min to cook, depending on how hot it is in your area! It only took 30 min here in sunny Florida to melt the marshmallows. We accidentally made the mistake of adding the entire s’more at once! In retrospect, we should have added the marshmallows first and then added the chocolate after about 20 min. Chocolate has such a fast melting point, it was dripping after 30 min in the solar oven! But Bonus… the kids learned about melting points!
That sums up our alternative energy science unit! If you are looking for more experiments, you can check out this book read aloud – “Catch the Wind, Harness the Sun”. Stay tuned next week when we move onto a study of our home State Florida!