Curriculum & Lessons

Below are curriculum and lesson plans for teachers interested in doing in-depth wind energy projects in the classroom. Please check out our brand new WindWise curriculum below.

WindWise Education

WindWise Education is an innovative curriculum for 6-12th grades that provides answers to today's real-world energy questions.

WindWise is not an advocacy curriculum; the activities utilize unbiased, scientific data, case studies, and scenarios. While teaching core subjects such as physics, technology, earth science, math, economics, social studies, and language arts, WindWise answers key questions such as "where is it windy in the US?", "which wind turbine blades work best?", and "how are birds impacted by wind turbines?".

The WindWise curricula is available to download for free. Binders of the material are also available for purchase.

Download or purchase the WindWise curricula - www.windwiseeducation.org

KidWind/Vernier Data Lessons

Recently we have been using Vernier System equipment to quantify the power and energy output of our wind turbines, solar cells and fuel cell products. We have found this hardware and software easy to use and it provides a large amount of data for a variety of simple or complex experiments that students commonly perform. Click here for the lessons.

KidWind Developed Lessons

KidWind prides itself on being open source. Our lessons are our gift to you. Feel free to download them and use them for your class. However, these lessons are copyrighted. You may not resell them, or use them in a commercial project. If you have any questions about our copyrighted material, please contact us.

	Energy Notions Using images and drawings you can better understand what students think about the future of renewable/non renewable energy before you start to teach them about it.
	"See" the Wind Using kites and caution tape you can help students see the variability in wind speeds due to turbulence and friction near the surface of the earth.
	Wind Farm Scale Models In a hands on activity students visualize how big windmills will look for a proposed offshore wind farm.
	Designing Wind Blades Students design and test wind blades on a small PVC turbine
	Siting Wind Projects In a hands on activity you can help students see the complexities faced by a community that wants to build a large wind farm in their township.
	Wind Power Curves What is a wind power curve and what does is tell us about a wind turbine?
	Collect & Analyze Local Wind Data Using a simple data logging anemometer and Excel we can do some pretty sophisiticated analysis of the wind resources around your school or home.

 

KidWind Math Documents

Units : Helpful units and coversions for wind energy math

Answer Key

Elementary—Middle School

Gear Ratios : Calculate gear ratios and see how gears are used in wind turbines

Triangle Height Measurements : Estimate the height of a wind turbine by using similar     triangles

Middle School—High School

Swept Area : Calculate the swept area of your turbine blades using the area of a circle

Coefficient of Power : Measure the efficiency of a wind turbine by calculating its     coefficient of power

Word Problems : Explore the math and economics behind wind energy with these     challenging word problems

High School

Tip Speed Ratio : Measure wind turbine tip speed ratios and learn about optimal TSRs for     turbines

Offsite lessons

8th Grade

Ithaca City Schools - Wind Energy Unit, Part I : Students are part of a task force that decides if a wind farm can be built in Tompkins county. To do this, students research and debate the issues surrounding wind farms, then come to a consensus. Part II. Students learn Arc GIS a geographic mapping program to determine the best location to place a wind farm. In the process they learn how to use Arc GIS, learn which geographic factors impact wind farms and make decisions on which of these factors are most important.