Engineering Wind Turbines

This lesson is designed to build students’ competencies in the following skills:

• creative thinking
• critical thinking
• collaboration
• problem-solving
• prototyping

Australian Curriculum (v9.0) content descriptions:  

Year 7 & 8, Design and Technologies

Students learn to:

• analyse how force, motion and energy are used to manipulate and control engineered systems (AC9TDE8K03)
• analyse needs or opportunities for designing, and investigate and select materials, components, tools, equipment and processes to create designed solutions (AC9TDE8P01)
• generate, test, iterate and communicate design ideas, processes and solutions using technical terms and graphical representation techniques, including using digital tools (AC9TDE8P02)
• select, justify and use suitable materials, components, tools, equipment, skills and processes to safely make designed solutions (AC9TDE8P03).

Australian Curriculum (v9.0) content descriptions: Related content

Year 7 Physical Sciences

Students learn to:

• investigate and represent balanced and unbalanced forces, including gravitational force, acting on objects, and relate changes in an object’s motion to its mass and the magnitude and direction of forces acting on it (AC9S7U04).

Relevant parts of Year 7 & 8 achievement standards: 

Students can explain how the features of technologies impact on design decisions, and create designed solutions based on analysis of needs or opportunities. Students can create and adapt design ideas, processes and solutions, and justify their decisions against developed design criteria that include sustainability.

NSW Syllabus outcomes: 

Stage 4 Design and Technology

• identifies and describes a range of design concepts and processes (DT4-1)
• describes and follows a process of design when developing design ideas and solutions (DT4-2)

General capabilities: Critical and Creative Thinking, Literacy, Numeracy, Personal and Social Capability

Cross-curriculum priority: Asia and Australia’s Engagement with Asia, Sustainability

Level of teacher scaffolding: High: explicit teaching is required to ensure students understand how wind turbines work and how watts are calculated. This includes scaffolding, modelling and possible prior preparation of wind turbine construction.

UN SDG 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

• Target 7:1 By 2030, ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services.

Per turbine made

• masking tape 
• paper or polystyrene cup
• 2 straws
• 500mm twine
• 1 wooden skewer
• 1-2cm Blu Tack
• 1 paper clip
• 3 weighted objects (could include rocks, marbles or 10-gram weights if available)

This lesson has been developed in partnership with the Queensland Government through Queensland's Clean Energy Workforce Roadmap. Cool.org would like to acknowledge and express our gratitude to the Clean Energy Council for the expertise and advice provided in creating these resources.

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