|
Projects |
SunChaser Education Program,
New Mexico Solar Energy AssociationThe "SunChaser" trailer:
www.nmsea.org/SunChaser2/SunChaser2.htm
And, an even more portable "kit":
www.nmsea.org/SunChaser2/Solar_Kits.htm |
 This
is a neat program that uses a trailer full of displays of renewable energy
applications.
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
|
 The FSEC
has a whole raft of educational programs for kids.
Lots of good material. |
| Solar Dinosaur
Play Structure Details and plans...
|
 This
is a dinosaur theme play structure we built for the grandkids.
It includes slide, climbing wall, swing, and solar powered dino horn
and rotating beacon light.
Details and plans... |
Renewable Energy Lesson Plans,
Texas State energy Conservation Office
www.infinitepower.org/lessonplans.htm
|
 22
well thought out lesson plans for renewable energy studies.
Grades 4 through High School. |
| Kid Wind
http://www.kidwind.org/
|
 Great
site for students to learn about wind power. Many lessons
and hands on experiments. |
Solargraphy
All the details on how to do
Solargraphy...
The Time in a Can
website... |
 This
is a fascinating project from Kevin that combines learning some elements of
pinhole photography along with developing a good understanding of the path
of the sun through the seasons.
Inexpensive and really interesting. |
Solar Energy Coloring Book,
Texas Solar Energy Society,
www.txses.orgThe coloring book (pdf)
|
 Quite
a neat solar energy coloring book!!From the Texas Solar Energy Society |
| Jack
McKee's Solar Projects for Kids
www.woodshop4kids.com/Hands_On_Books/diy_solar.html
|
 Jack
has been doing solar workshops for kids and teachers for quite a while, and
has documented some of his solar projects for kid here -- my favorite is The
Solar Kid Warmer.
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...
|
 This is an advanced project for making Dye Solar Cells for educational purposes.
Its a fairly involved process, but quite interesting and educational.
|
| House Design Energy Experiments For
Students
http://designcoalition.org/kids/energyhouse/pdfpage.htm
|
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
|
 Quite
an impressive student science project/experiment on the effect of roof
reflectivity on temperatures on and in the structure. |
| Biogas
Experiments
http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/fair/
|
 Some
Science Fair biogas projects from the University of Adelaide in Australia.
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:
www.nrel.gov/docs/gen/fy01/30825.pdf
List of JSS Hosts:
www.nrel.gov/education/pdfs/njss_host_sites.pdf |
 Information
on setting up a solar model car program for students. Car kits, car
construction hints, and information on setting up these programs. |
| Junior Solar Sprint Program in the
NE
http://www.nesea.org/k-12/juniorsolarsprint/
|
 A
successful Junior Solar Sprint program in the NE. |
| An Advanced Solar Airplane Project |
 An advanced solar airplane project from Newman Smith Highschool.
|
| Renewable Energy Canada
http://www.re-energy.ca/t_teacher.shtml
|
This is a great site for introducing kids to renewable energy -- lots of
hands-on projects and painless learning.
 Solar
oven and vertical axis windmill that can be built as student projects.
Lesson plans, posters, ... |
| Renewable Energy Canada
http://www.re-energy.ca/t-i_waterbuild-1.shtml
Plans (1MB pdf)
Template (74K pdf)
|
 A
very slick little water turbine to generate electricity.
|
| 4-H National Youth
Science Day
https://www.4-h.org/NYSD/index.php
|
 The
4-H National Youth Science Day website organizes yearly(?) science days with
a well planned experiment kit for each event.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
www.exo.net/ ...
|
 "With
iodine, blackberry juice, and a few simple materials, you can create a
working solar cell that mimics the process of photosynthesis."An
interesting lab experiment from the Exploratorium Teachers Institute. |
| Wind Stuff
Now -- One Hour Windmill
www.windstuffnow.com/main/one_hour_projects.htm
|
 A
quick and simple windmill that can be built in a short time.
I would think some wind physics labs could be developed from this?
|
| Pico Turbine Windmill Kits
www.picoturbine.com |
 If
you want to get started in wind generation in a really small way, here's the
site. Lots of other interesting wind related materials on the site.
Well done plans for this desk top turbine are a free download. |
|
Passive Solar
Bird Bath
Plans for a passive solar bird bath...
|
 This
is a nice design for a simple solar heated bird bath.
It heats the water up enough in PA winters to provide an unfrozen drinking
water source for birds through the winter.
Seems like a good school project.
|
|
A Wind Energy-Powered Charger
Kelly s. Isaac
Finding Mother Earth News articles...
|
 Mother
Earth News Article, Issue 138 June/July 1993This 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
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/ballonsolaire/en-index.htm |
 Small
(and not so small) scale solar hot air balloons -- very interesting. |
|
Greenhouse from pop bottles
www.reapscotland.org.uk/reports/greenhouse%20v1.pdf
|
 This
is a greenhouse built by kids with using 2 liter pop bottles.
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
How to
get articles from Home Power ... |
 Home
Power Magazine article, issue 106Good article of doing a PV powered solar
fountain as a school project. |
|
Solar Cars for Pleasure or Competition
Tina M. Sorenson
How to
get articles from Home Power ... |
 Home
Power Magazine article, issue 53Elementary students learn about solar
power by building and racing solar electric model cars. |
|
Running The Minnesota Solar Boat Regatta
Ralph Jacobson and Tom Roark
How to
get articles from Home Power ... |
 Home
Power Magazine article, issue 59A 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
Solar For Students (pdf)
|
 Several
solar projects for students from the North Carolina Solar Center |
|
List of kids oriented websites Renewable Resource Data Center
http://rredc.nrel.gov/kidzlinks.html
|
List of kids oriented websites from the Renewable Resource Data Center |
|
3 Phase Wind Turbine Kit From WindStuffNow.com
Wind Turbine Kit
|
 This
is an inexpensive wind turbine kit that looks like it would be fun to build
as a student project.Look at the plans |
Two Small Wind Generator Projects
A unique WindBelt wind powered generator...
A
wind generator from a floppy disk drive... |
 Mladen's
site has a couple of small wind projects that look like good projects.
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
motion of a wind driven belt to move a magnet over a fixed coil. This
seems like a particularly good way to illustrate how magnetism and
electricity are tied together. |
|
A sterling Engine from Pop Cans
www.physics.sfasu.edu
|
 A
demonstration sterling engine made from pop cans. |
|
Pager Motors dot com
www.pagermotors.com Robots
|
 Inexpensive
kits for several solar cell powered robot kits.
All with very complete online tutorials showing how to build them. |
|
Solar Kits from Silicon Solar
http://www.siliconsolar.com/educational-solar-kits.php
|
 A
variety of solar kits for students. |
|
A Small, Portable PV System for Camping, Emergencies, ...
And Learning about Solar Electricity!
Details on the portable PV
system...
|
 This
is a project lifted from PV section, but its also
(I think) a good learning project for Solar Electricity, and when you are
done, you have a useful product. Clearly the lead acid battery posses
some safety issues, and adult supervision would be a must.
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... |
 This is an earth-sun simulator you can build to test reflector designs or to understand sun and shade patterns on anything you can build a model of.
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 ...
 |
 This
is the Solar Site Survey that I recommend people do before building any
project that relies on solar radiation.
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
Sundial and Sun Path Lesson
|
 Lesson
plan for making a sun dial and understanding the path across the sky
(knowledge lacking in most adults). |
|
Omniscience Futureneering
www.webcom.com/sknkwrks/welcome.htm
|
 With
the possible exception of the small Sterling engines, this site has nothing
to do with solar, but it has some really interesting DIY projects."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? |
 Thermal
imaging cameras offer an unmatched capability to view the temperatures over
a whole surface. They are a great tool for things like improving solar
collector designs.
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).
The build is straight forward and not expensive. Some adult
supervision is needed, but its something that kids could do a lot of the
work on.
Would love to hear from anyone who takes this on.
|
 I
did a side by side test of Scott's new design
 of
the CPVC/aluminum collector comparing it to the copper/aluminum
collector.
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
VariationsAll 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
is a simple way to test the effect of tree shade on collector efficiency.
It uses two identical collectors each with a bottle of water inside to
collect heat. You place one collector in full sun, and the other in
the shade of the trees you are concerned about. The difference
in water temperature rise at the end of the collection period tells you how
much the shade is hurting.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? |
|
Califormia Academy of Sciences -- SanFrancisco
http://www.calacademy.org/
Some pictures from our visit ... |
 A
really terrific place to take kids (or retired engineer grandfathers) to
have fun learning about science.An amazing rainforest bubble, aquariums,
green roof, ... lots and lots -- all very well done.
Lots of good material on the challenges of climate change.
Some pictures from our visit ... |
|
Exploratorium -- San Francisco
http://www.exploratorium.edu/
|
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
|
 This
looks like an interesting set of green building exhibits with some hands-on.
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 Details
here... |
 The
University of Arizona Students In Free Enterprise and Sam's Club teamed up
to help two local Tucson businesses to save some money on their energy bills
and to reduce water use and carbon emissions.
The details here... |
|
Schoolgen
http://www.schoolgen.co.nz/default.aspx
|
 An interesting
NZ program that combines solar electric projects at schools with renewable
energy material and projects for school kids.
The site includes a Resources section for teachers who want to start similar
programs. |
