Measuring the Power of Wind and Water

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

• creative thinking
• collaboration
• communication
• digital literacy
• problem-solving
• prototyping
• reflection

Australian Curriculum (v9.0) content description: 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 achievement standards: 

Students represent and explain the effects of forces acting on objects.

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

Year 7 Design and Technologies

Students learn to:

• analyse how force, motion and energy are used to manipulate and control engineered systems. (AC9TDE8K03)

NSW Syllabus outcomes: 

• describes the effects of forces in everyday contexts (SC4-FOR-01)

General capabilities: Critical and Creative Thinking

Cross-curriculum priority: Sustainability 

Level of teacher scaffolding: High: facilitation of experimentation and explicit teaching of concepts required.

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.
• Target 7.3: By 2030, double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency.

• Force meters
• Live demonstration materials: a toy car, a ramp, and different weights
• Turbine creation materials (1 set for each group)
• Turbine model for demonstration
• Wind and hydro turbine creation guide

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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