Some fun and educational solar projects for kids or for the kid in all of us. These are projects for students that involve renewable energy, solar physics, model wind generators, PV powered boats and cars, and even a solar balloon.
If you have done a project and have some pictures and a write-up -- PLEASE send them in. Your project may be just what the thousands of people a week who visit this page are looking for!
If you have or see any good material for this area, please let me know.
Questions?
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Projects | |
SunChaser Education Program, New Mexico Solar Energy Association The "SunChaser" trailer: And, an even more portable "kit":
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![]() ![]() The trailer makes visits on request. This program is probably limited to NM, but you could start one in your state. They have developed a whole series of kits to demonstrate energy efficiency and solar energy. I'm sure they would be interested in helping others set up similar programs. |
Florida Solar
Energy Center -- Education http://www.fsec.ucf.edu/en/education/index.htm
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![]() Lots of good material. |
Solar Dinosaur
Play Structure
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![]() It includes slide, climbing wall, swing, and solar powered dino horn and rotating beacon light. |
Renewable Energy Lesson Plans, Texas State energy Conservation Office www.infinitepower.org/lessonplans.htm
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![]() Grades 4 through High School.
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Kid Wind
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Solargraphy All the details on how to do Solargraphy... The Time in a Can website... |
![]() Inexpensive and really interesting. |
Solar Energy Coloring Book, Texas Solar Energy Society, www.txses.org The coloring book (pdf)
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![]() From the Texas Solar Energy Society |
Jack
McKee's Solar Projects for Kids
www.woodshop4kids.com/Hands_On_Books/diy_solar.html
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Jack also has a lot of material on workworking for kids -- the 2nd best hobby in the world. |
DYE Solar Cells For Real -- The Assembly Guide for Making Your Own Solar Cells...
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Its a fairly involved process, but quite interesting and educational. |
House Design Energy Experiments For
Students http://designcoalition.org/kids/energyhouse/pdfpage.htm
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![]() An interesting set of experiments for students to understand energy use in homes. You start by making a model house from a cardboard box, and then measure the effects of windows, insulation, air leaks, thermal mass, ... The only instrumentation required is a thermometer. The "Furnace" is a glass of hot water. It looks like a really fun way to learn about home design and experimental techniques. If only the people who are now laying out housing areas and building homes had been exposed to this! |
Lighter, Brighter, and Cooler: An
Analysis of the Effect of Roofing Albedo on Ambient Temperature www.amnh.org/nationalcenter/youngnaturalistawards/2007/Ryan.html
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Biogas
Experiments http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/fair/
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![]() The university has a large, hands-on section on biogas digesters and applications. (Thanks to Dave for suggesting this) |
Junior Solar Sprint Program http://www.nrel.gov/education/jss_hfc.html
Hosting guide book:
List of JSS Hosts: |
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Junior Solar Sprint Program in the
NE http://www.nesea.org/k-12/juniorsolarsprint/
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An Advanced Solar Airplane Project |
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Renewable Energy Canada |
This is a great site for introducing kids to renewable energy -- lots of
hands-on projects and painless learning.
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Renewable Energy Canada http://www.re-energy.ca/t-i_waterbuild-1.shtml Plans (1MB pdf) Template (74K pdf)
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4-H National Youth
Science Day https://www.4-h.org/NYSD/index.php
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![]() This years is on the effect of increased CO2 levels in water. There is an inexpensive experimental kit offered for up to 15 participants. |
Juice from
Juice, Jill Johnsen and Stephanie Chasteen, Exploratorium Teacher Institute
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![]() An interesting lab experiment from the Exploratorium Teachers Institute. |
Wind Stuff
Now -- One Hour Windmill www.windstuffnow.com/main/one_hour_projects.htm
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![]() I would think some wind physics labs could be developed from this?
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Pico Turbine Windmill Kits |
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A Wind Energy-Powered Charger Kelly s. Isaac Finding Mother Earth News articles...
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![]() This small, vertical axis windmill is not going to power your house, but it would make a great school project to get some hands on experience with wind generators. |
Solar Hot Air Balloons |
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Greenhouse from pop bottles www.reapscotland.org.uk/reports/greenhouse%20v1.pdf
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![]() The finished GH could be used for any number of solar heating and growing experiments. A great demonstration of how simple solar can be. (from HomesteadingToday.com) |
HP106 Make A Solar Fountain! Hal Aronson and Tor Allen |
![]() Good article of doing a PV powered solar fountain as a school project. |
Solar Cars for Pleasure or Competition Tina M. Sorenson |
![]() Elementary students learn about solar power by building and racing solar electric model cars. |
Running The Minnesota Solar Boat Regatta Ralph Jacobson and Tom Roark |
![]() A neat program middle/high school students build and race solar PV powered boats. Quite a bit of detail on how the program is run. |
Solar Activities for Students North Carolina Solar Center
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List of kids oriented websites Renewable Resource Data Center http://rredc.nrel.gov/kidzlinks.html
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List of kids oriented websites from the Renewable Resource Data Center |
3 Phase Wind Turbine Kit From WindStuffNow.com
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![]() Look at the plans |
Two Small Wind Generator Projects A unique WindBelt wind powered generator... A wind generator from a floppy disk drive... |
![]() One is a "conventional" wind turbine that uses a floppy disk drive motor as the generator. The 2nd is an interesting design I've not seen before that uses the ![]() |
A sterling Engine from Pop Cans
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Pager Motors dot com
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![]() All with very complete online tutorials showing how to build them. |
Solar Kits from Silicon Solar http://www.siliconsolar.com/educational-solar-kits.php
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A Small, Portable PV System for Camping, Emergencies, ...
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Kevin built a small, portable PV system to provide some power for lights, radio, cell phone charging,... on camping trips. The system is small, simple, inexpensive, and easy to build -- a great learning system. |
An Easy to Build Earth-Sun Simulator for Optimizing Reflectors and Shawdowo Studies... |
It allows you to see the sun and shadows for any location on the earth and any season and for any time of day. By rotating the turntable you can quickly play the sun over your model for a full day and see the sun and shade patterns. You can take readings on the model with a light meter and get a quantitative idea how much (for example) a reflector is increasing radiation. |
Solar Site Survey ...
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![]() I think it also makes a great learning project that: 1) Shows the use of the Sun Chart to determine the daily path of the sun through the sky through the full year. With this one small chart, you can pinpoint the position of the sun at any instant throughout the full year, and gain an understanding of the seasonal changes in the sun's path. Just learning how to use the Sun Chart alone would make a great lesson. 2) Uses two simple handmade gages to measure the direction and elevation of obstacles that might shade a solar collector. The "skyline" of obstacles is plotted on the sun chart to determine what times of the year and day your collector will be in sun. The whole thing could be done as a couple one hour exercises. Coming to understand how the path of the sun changes through the seasons is a useful for everything from designing solar homes to planning outdoor activities. It is something that amazingly few adults understand. This could easily feed into further sessions on passive solar home design, or solar electricity, passive cooling ... |
Understanding the Suns Path and Making a Sun Dial
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Omniscience Futureneering
www.webcom.com/sknkwrks/welcome.htm
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![]() "O.F.
was a high-school-based science/engineering/inventing club. It was founded
on the premise that the best way to learn about anything was to design it,
make it or modify it and then to use it." Some of these projects definitely require supervision. |
My new
Thermal Imaging Camera Some tests and impressions of my new thermal imaging camera... I included this in the Solar Projects for Kids section because there are just so many ways one of these cameras could be used in simple experiments to understand the thermal aspects of the world around us. They are not cheap, but are dropping in price -- maybe FLIR or Fluke has a program for school purchases? |
![]() They have been almost prohibitively expense, but over the last few years have come down a lot as some entry level lines have been introduced with lower prices that have been steadily dropping. The lowest priced ones are now a bit over $1000 -- still a lot, but much better than $10,000. I recently took the plunge and got a FLIR IR camera. My impressions of the FLIR so far are here... |
Comparing the Performance of Two DIY Solar Water Heating Collectors -- CPVC vs Copper
All the details on CPVC collector performance test... I've included this in the "Educational" section because its an
interesting new design where not everything has been figured out, and there
are some relatively straight forward design variations that could be done
and that might yield a better design (not to mention a better understanding
of solar thermal physics).
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![]() ![]() The performance of the CPVC collector was good, and I think that this CPVC design offers another option for DIY solar collectors. The CPVC collector is easy to build and would make a good first solar project. All the details on CPVC collector performance test... |
Effect of Tree Shade on Solar Collector Efficiency AND A Simple Way to Test All Kinds of Collector Design & Placement Variations All the details on solar tree shade test... Note: this little test comes out of the Experimental Section, but it would make a great Science Fair or school project. A genuinely useful paper could be done comparing the effect of different kinds of shading on collector performance. As far as I know, this has not been done, and would be quite helpful to people locating solar collectors. I'd be happy to publish such a paper on BIS. Gary |
![]() This same method could be used to compare glazing materials, compare different collector orientations, ... and all sorts of other variables. Its simple, practical, and accurate. |
Places to see Looking for more of these -- know of any? |
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Califormia Academy of Sciences -- SanFrancisco
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![]() An amazing rainforest bubble, aquariums, green roof, ... lots and lots -- all very well done. Lots of good material on the challenges of climate change. |
Exploratorium -- San Francisco
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![]() Another great San Fran Cisco learning and fun place. "The Exploratorium is an experimental, hands-on museum designed to spark curiosity" |
Green House at the National Building Museum www.nbm.org/Exhibits/greenHouse2/greenHouse.htm
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![]() If you find yourself in DC, check it out. |
Programs | |
U AZ Students Help Local Businesses to Save Energy, Water, Money, and Reduce Carbon Emissions |
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Schoolgen http://www.schoolgen.co.nz/default.aspx
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![]() The site includes a Resources section for teachers who want to start similar programs. |
Gary May 15, 2008