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How Solar Cells Work
Students create electricity. In this solar energy lesson, students role play how photovoltaic cells change sunlight into electricity. Students discuss the experiment and create their own diagram of the model.
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Cooking With Solar
Identify how solar energy generates thermal energy by constructing solar cookers with your students. They will evaluate the factors that affect efficiency and the lesson can be adapted to capture data in a variety of ways.
Teach Engineering
Win that Bid! Selling Your Power Solution
Power up! Class members research a type of power production using a great resource featuring a real-world problem. Groups select a type of power generation and pretend that they represent an engineering firm for their chosen power type....
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Seasons and Cloud Cover, Are They Related?
Students use NASA satellite data to see cloud cover over Africa. In this seasons instructional activity students access data and import it into Excel.
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Passive Solar Design
Students study what passive solar design is for buildings and structures. In this solar design lesson plan students identify passive solar design techniques.
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Our Amazing, Powerful Sun
Middle schoolers examine where energy comes from and how it can be used. In this solar energy lesson students explore different aspects of the sun.
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Heat Transfer
Students examine heat transfer using energy efficient houses. In this heat transfer lesson students calculate the heat that is transferred between a system and its surroundings.
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Using Heat
The 6 slides give a few examples of ways that we use heat and heating systems. There is a diagram of circulation in a stove and forced air system as well as other examples of heat movers. Great for an introduction.
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Attributes of Renewable Energy: From Nanopossibilities to Solar Power
High schoolers explore solar energy, why we use it and how we use it. In this renewable energy instructional activity students compare active and solar techniques.
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Solar Effects on Global Warming
Students explore the greenhouse effect and how it affects our climate. In this global warming lesson students draw the sun and label features and describe the effects of the sun's energy on the world.
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Sunspots
Learners examine what a sunspot is and how it is produced. In this sun lesson students locate and measure sunspots then view them through a camera.
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The Magic of Solar Thermal: How the Sun Can Be Used to Heat Water
Learners are introduced to how the sun is used to heat water. In this solar lesson students identify the different types of solar water heating and demonstrate how it works.
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How Solar Cells Work: Converting Sunlight to Electricity
Students examine how to convert sunlight to electricity. In this renewable energy sources lesson students explain how solar cells are used and use a voltmeter to measure the energy produced by a solar panel.
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Solar Cooker Challenge
Students use the scientific method to design a slow cooker. In this experimental method lesson students measure temperatures and conversions of the solar cooker that they create.
US Department of Energy
Solar Distiller
Explore the sun's ability to distill contaminated water with this simple set of classroom experiments. After filling two glass bowls, one with muddy water and the other with salt water, they are covered with plastic wrap and placed in...
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Pen Light Lab
Young scholars study what makes Earth warm and explore how different locations on the planetreceive different amounts of solar energy based on the intensity of the sun's rays. They calculate light intensities and compare the
amounts of...
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TE Lesson: Renewable Energy
Students examine renewable energy sources such as solar, water, and wind. They experiment to determine how renewable energy is transformed into electricity. They investigate the role of engineers who work in the field of renewable energy.
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Tracking the Sun with a Solar Dome
Pupils study the sun and how it moves throughout the day. In this tracking the sun lesson students create a model of the celestial sphere.
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Solar System
Students analyze theories on how the solar system was formed. In this solar system lesson students explain the rotation and revolution of motion.
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Design and Race a Solar Car
Students design, construct and evaluate a solar powered model car. In this solar power instructional activity students compete in a "solar sprint" race once their car is created.
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Electrolysis of Water
Ninth graders examine the electrolysis of water by completing an experiment. In this water lesson students will explain how hydrogen can be extracted from water and how energy flows through an electrolysis system.
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Water on the Moon
Fifth graders evaluate the pros and cons of using a system on the moon. In this water on the moon instructional activity students construct a solar water collector and estimate the amount of water in a given sample.
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Galileo's Battle for the Heavens
Students examine the nature of sunspot cycles and define solar minimums and maximums. In this sunspot lesson plan students construct and evaluate graphs of the current sunspot cycle.
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Solar Cooking
Students experiment with a virtual solar cooker to discover the relationship between reflection, transmission, and absorption. For this solar cooking lesson students apply what they learn to construct their own solar cooker.