Week 3 - Wednesday - Model building (and other activities)

Today started with a field trip to the University of Redlands co-generation plan.  Rick Quinbar did a great job in guiding the students through the center.  It was an opportune time to be there as the plant was not generating electricity (a valve had gone out).  The students learned that when the co-generation plant is down, the University of Redlands is forced to buy electricity from Southern California Edison.  Unfortunately, not being a "regular" customer, Southern California Edison has the ability to charge the university 3x the typical cost of electricity. 

When the University of Redlands does generate its own electricity, the by-product is hot water.  This water is used to heat buildings (especially our Science facility where lab animals need to be kept at a certain temperature).  The hot water is also used to heat the campus pool to a standard of 80 degrees (a requirement for the sports league that we operate in).  We also learned that the University of Redlands has purchased three years worth of natural gas (at a lower rate now with speculation that the price will go up in the future). 

Heading back to the classroom, the students wrote about their field trip to JPL (not specifically part of the energy literacy campaign) and the wind turbine tour.  One student wrote that he learned that "one wind turbine can generate more power than a a decent size solar array).  Another student wrote that he learned that a worker would need to "go in a door and climb a big ladder to the top."  Another wrote that "wind mills power lots of homes."  From the overall comments, the tour was a success.


The students, working in teams of two, constructed wind turbines from kits (shown here).  These was another great model building experience.  The students watched a brief movie and where then handed the kits and instructions.  It was great to see some kids working together to build the turbine (while others where happy to watch their teammate do the work).



The students then experimented with running their turbines in front of floor fans.  The bulbs actually lit up!  They tested how far from the wind source they could move their turbine before the bulb would not light (due to lack of power to the fan).







I wrapped up the day with the introduction to hydropower.  Friday is our tour to Seven Oaks Dam.




Image sources:
http://www.amazon.com/ComputerGear-Windmill-Generator-Science-Kit/dp/B001TG121K/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1342098224&sr=8-16&keywords=wind+turbine+kit
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Seven_Oaks_Dam.jpg