Wind Energy

Subject(s): Engineering and Science

Grade level(s): 4th and 5th
Authors: Ann Ficht, Alex Casso, Rachel Jumper
Overview

Student will be learning the purpose of wind turbines by constructing

one of their own. These students have voluntarily signed up for
College Mentors for Kids, an organization that pairs at-risk students
with college students to inspire a change in their learning.

Description of learners

The learners are at-risk fourth and fifth grade students who live in
the Lafayette-West Lafayette community.

Environment

The program takes place in a classroom at Purdue. The program

teaches the STEM disciplines, which are science, technology,
engineering, and math.

Objectives

NSTA National
Science Education
Standards

Given a word bank, the students will be able to identify the

parts of a windmill on a picture with little to no error.
Given the labeled windmill, the students will be able to
explain the importance of the parts of the windmill and wind
power accurately within five minutes.

E.1.2.a ( Grades: K-4 ): Students should make proposals to build

something or get something to work better; they should be able to
describe and communicate their ideas. Students should recognize
that designing a solution might have constraints, such as cost,
materials, time, space, or safety.
E.1.3.a ( Grades: K-4 ): Children should develop abilities to work
individually and collaboratively and to use suitable tools, techniques,
and quantitative measurements when appropriate. Students should
demonstrate the ability to balance simple constraints in problem
solving.
E.1.4.a ( Grades: K-4 ): Students should evaluate their own results
or solutions to problems, as well as those of other children, by
considering how well a product or design met the challenge to solve
a problem. When possible, students should use measurements and
include constraints and other criteria in their evaluations. They
should modify designs based on the results of evaluations.
http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/phy03.sci.engin.design.lp_wind
mill/windmills-putting-wind-energy-to-work/

Materials

Procedures

pencil
paper template
stick pin
scissors
tape
computer/laptop/iPad(anything that can open the Lino page)

Connection/Hook
-Have you ever been to, or seen, a wind farm, or have you seen the wind
turbines in Fowler, Indiana? (allow students time to respond)
-Have you ever wondered what they were there for? (allow students time
to respond)
-Well today we are going to find out just what those big machines do!
Were even going to build our own!
Purpose
The purpose of this lesson is to learn about wind energy and its importance
to communities.
Teaching
Open Lino page that we created. Play the informational video that is on
wind turbines.
-So what kind of materials do you think we need to make our own wind
turbine? (Try to get them to think in the terms of the parts of the windmill.
For instance, what can we use to make the blades, or the tower...etc.)
Active Engagement
Have students read and look through the step-by-step instructions on how
to create a windmill that is on our Lino page. Students will begin to create
their own using the materials we provide them.
Assessment
After the students create their windmill, have the students label the
different parts of the windmill using the word bank provided on the Lino
page. As the students label the parts, have them briefly explain what each
parts purpose is.
Closure
-So do you think wind energy is a good thing for our communities?
And why? (give students time to respond)
(Answer we are looking for...Wind power is a renewable resource
and something that is highly accessible.)
Great job today!
LINO LINK: http://linoit.com/users/rajumper/canvases/Windmills

Assessment

The student will create a working windmill. After he or she has

completed building the windmill, the student will label the parts of the
windmill using a word bank. The students will then explain what
each part of the windmill does.

This is the lesson we got our lesson idea from:

http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/phy03.sci.engin.design.lp_windmill/windmills-putting-windenergy-to-work/
We based our step-by-step instructions off of this tutorial:
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Pinwheel
This is our Lino link:
http://linoit.com/users/rajumper/canvases/Windmills
This is the link to the Windmill video used on the Lino page:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsZITSeQFR0

Journal Articles
Portsmore, M. D., & Rogers, C. (2004). Bringing engineering to elementary school. Journal of
STEM education, 5.
This article was helpful by using examples on how elementary education students can learn and
use engineering in the classroom. The article explains the importance in understanding the
design of an object before the construction can begin and we can connect that to our lesson
plan where we have students learn about how to build a windmill before they can begin
constructing their own.
Kuenzi, J. J. (2008). Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) education:
Background, federal policy, and legislative action.
This article is mainly about the importance of teaching STEM in the classroom. For our lesson
plan we focused on the engineering part of stem but we also incorporate parts of science so this
article was helpful in learning why all of them are important in different ways.