High School Alternative Energy Project

Background:

Recently we finished part of the Castle Electricity Unit. After completing section 5 of the module we decided to give the students a project. This project included summer material I received from a workshop at the UNC botanical gardens. See blog entry UNC Exploring the Future of Electricity. To include some environmental and stewardship topics in our course we decided to implement a project covering Alternative Energy sources. Students are to present a Video/Power Point project comparing one alternative energy they choose to electricity. We gave students different options for their topics using the Secondary Energy Infobook from the NEED org website (www.NEED.org). Students choose their alternative energy source from the list that appeared in table of content.

Students were allowed to choose their own topics, however groups were not allowed to have the same topics. This would allow students to review all of the various energy sources.

Technology:

Once the students had their topics, students then had to put their information into a video. This could have been a PowerPoint with audio or  a video created in Windows Movie Maker. To help students understand how to add audio to a PowerPoint presentation, I referred students to two you tube videos:

 

 

I think both videos are pretty simple to follow. Which is what I was looking for when referring a resource to them. There are tons of tutorials out there for the PowerPoint and Windows Movie Maker programs. Adding audio can be difficult for students who have never done this before. I would make sure you go over this in class when assigning the project.

A great video we showed students was the Galloping Gertie Video on you tube:

 

This was a great example of using video, photos and narration. Of course there are other great examples out there, but we wanted to give the students an example that would not be out of reach.

Information:

We asked students to include the following information in their video report:                                  

1- Describe how your alternative energy resource works, give details. Remember to use concepts we have learned during our electricity unit.

2- Give the pro’s and con’s to your alternative energy resource. This would include the arguments for and against the implementation of this energy resource.

3- Explain how this energy resource could be implemented in North Carolina, is it being considered as an alternative? If it has been implemented has it been successful, be specific.

4- On the national level, is this renewable energy resource being considered? If so how? Has it been implemented in other areas of the US? Is it a success? Explain.

Students were also required to hand in a bibliography for all sources, this included websites and photos. Hopefully students will be creative when using their digital talents. We will see. Project is due this week . I’m thinking of using this project for an end of year unit for Earth Science. Right now we have Physics students completeing the project to close out our electricity unit.