Wind Turbine Blade Design

Kidwind Project

Students go through the design process and the scientific process to test the effect of blade design on power output. There is an optional extension to use the data to create an optimal set of wind turbine blades.

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Notes from our reviewers

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Teachers need to allocate storage space for the wind turbines during construction. Educators will want to provide additional content about the science of wind energy as a source of renewable energy, including energy storage, transmission, etc. Activities like this have been used in energy, weather, and environmental science units as well as in physics classrooms to teach aerodynamics.
Models the scientific process - especially hypothesis testing. The testing of actual blade models will reinforce the importance of blade design. Comments from expert scientist: Great resource for a hands on experimentation. It's quite old (11 years) so some of the newer concepts in blade design aren't covered. There has been a lot of work in this area. However, this project focuses more on the fundamentals of wind power, so the age of the resource isn't of great concern.
With additional scaffolding, it can be used in energy, weather, and environmental science units or to teach students how to properly set up and use the scientific process while exploring something new and different. Technology teachers could use this lesson to teach about the design process and integrate science concepts. The activity could also be used as a small segment in a month-long exploration of wind energy (it would require more scaffolding to do this effectively). Great teaching materials with good handouts.
Substantial preparation time required to implement activity. Educator must be familiar with wind turbine models and should experiment with one before attempting to do this project. Educator needs to provide specific instructions to standardize turbine testing. The resource is built around the background materials and kits available for sale at [http://www.kidwind.org], however materials can be purchased elsewhere. Links that are broken: http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/manu/bladtest.htm and http://www.awea.org/projects Instead use [http://www.windpower.org/en/] for Danish Wind Association site and [http://www.awea.org/] for American Wind Energy Association site.