Student teams measure voltage and current in order to determine the power output of a photovoltaic (PV) panel. They vary the resistance in a simple circuit connected to the panel to demonstrate the effects on voltage, current, and power output. After collecting data, they calculate power for each resistance setting, creating a graph of current vs. voltage, and indentifying the maximum power point.

Students learn how engineers design devices that use water to generate electricity by building model water turbines and measuring the resulting current produced in a motor. Student teams work through the engineering design process to build the turbines, analyze the performance of their turbines and make calculations to determine the most suitable locations to build dams.

Students learn how engineers harness the energy of the wind to produce power by following the engineering design process as they prototype two types of wind turbines and test to see which works best. Students also learn how engineers decide where to place wind turbines, and the advantages and disadvantages to using wind power compared to other non-renewable energy sources.

In this activity, students act as power engineers by specifying the power plants to build for a community. They are given a budget, an expected power demand from the community, and different power plant options with corresponding environmental effects. They can work through this scenario as a class or on their own.

This lesson provides students with an overview of the electric power industry in the United States. Students also become familiar with the environmental impacts associated with a variety of energy sources.

Students imagine they are stranded on an island and must create the brightest light possible with the meager supplies they have on hand in order to gain the attention of a rescue airplane. In small groups, students create circuits using items in their "survival kits" to create maximum voltage, measured with a multimeter and two LED lights. To complete the activity, students act as engineers by using the given materials to create circuits that produces the highest voltage and light up the most LED lights. They apply their knowledge of how voltage differs in a series circuit and a parallel circuit to design their solutions.

Uncountable times every day with the merest flick of a finger each one of us calls on electricity to do our bidding. What would your life be like without electricity? Students begin learning about electricity with an introduction to the most basic unit in ordinary matter, the atom. Once the components of an atom are addressed and understood, students move into the world of electricity. First, they explore static electricity, followed by basic current electricity concepts such as voltage, resistance and open/closed circuits. Next, they learn about that wonderful can full of chemicals the battery. Students may get a "charge" as they discover the difference between a conductor and an insulator. The unit concludes with lessons investigating simple circuits arranged "in series" and "in parallel," including the benefits and unique features associated with each. Through numerous hands-on activities, students move cereal and foam using charged combs, use balloons to explore electricity and charge polarization, build and use electroscopes to evaluate objects' charge intensities, construct simple switches using various materials in circuits that light bulbs, build and use simple conductivity testers to evaluate materials and solutions, build and experiment with simple series and parallel circuits, design and build their own series circuit flashlight, and draw circuits using symbols.

This resource contains 95 multiple choice quiz questions inspired by Examples in the 12 chapters of University Physics Volume 2 Unit 2: Electricity and Magnetism. The quizzes have randomized numerical values, and can be printed out in two versions for students sitting side-by-side in a classroom. The current configuration creates 3-question quizzes. A study guide leads students to a practice quiz for each chapter. The number of questions in the study guide ranges from 4 to 11. The small number of questions in certain chapters does not imply that these chapters are less important -- not all examples make for good multiple choice test questions that involve numerical calculations. After this system has been field tested, more questions can be added where needed. Conceptual questions can also be added.

The selection of 3 questions from a given chapter was achieved by a random number generator. For this reason, the question selections might be less than ideal. These quizzes are not intended to have a large impact on the students' grade, but instead to encourage students to *read the textbook*. Also, since instructors know the contents of the quizzes in advance, they can compensate for idiosyncratic question selection as they prep students for the quiz.

The advantage of this system is that it is extremely convenient for instructors to use the browser's "print" option to print and distribute a quiz to the students. The disadvantage is that students and instructor have equal access to everything. Fortunately we can "hide the quizzes in plain sight". The current configuration provides 20 "renditions" of each quiz, and only the instructor knows which is selected.

The transparent nature of this unorthodox system has some advantages: Traditional methods of hiding the content of upcoming classroom exams are plagued by the fact that it is difficult to keep information secret. Instructors who use the same or similar exams for consecutive years will discover that students begin to exchange information with each other between semesters. An even more intractable problem is that testbank questions can be purchased on the internet. In this regard, the OER efforts might gain advantage over commercial ventures that sell text questions to instructors or students. The legitimate vendors (who sell to instructors) attempt to solve the "secrecy" problem by continuously modifying the textbooks, exams, and other ancillary materials. While all this ensures future revenues for the vendors, it also perpetuates costs for students.

In contrast, there is no need to modify an OER textbook by artificially creating a "new" edition. In fact, it is my experience that OER are created at a painfully slow pace, so it is unlikely that OER materials could evolve even if we wanted them to. This relatively "static" nature of OER textbooks suggests that the exams and homework problems be also "static". Instead of asking students to solve a homework problem at home, they should be quizzed on their ability to solve a problem whose solution is readily available online. Unfortunately all this tends to reduce the quality of lessons to that of rote memorization. So instead of finding interesting homework problems for which there is not solution available on the internet, we should task students with creating new homework problems and test questions. Those with less ability can be tasked with improving the posted solutions to problems that have already been solved.

Broadcast radio waves from KPhET. Wiggle the transmitter electron manually or have it oscillate automatically. Display the field as a curve or vectors. The strip chart shows the electron positions at the transmitter and at the receiver.

Broadcast radio waves from KPhET. Wiggle the transmitter electron manually or have it oscillate automatically. Display the field as a curve or vectors. The strip chart shows the electron positions at the transmitter and at the receiver.

Students use real-world data to evaluate various renewable energy sources and the feasibility of implementing these sources. Working in small groups, students use data from the Renewable Energy Living Lab to describe and understand the way the world works. The data is obtained through observation and experimentation. Using the living lab gives students and teachers the opportunity to practice analyzing data to solve problems or answer questions, in much the same way that scientists and engineers do every day.

Students become familiar with the online Renewable Energy Living Lab interface and access its real-world solar energy data to evaluate the potential for solar generation in various U.S. locations. They become familiar with where the most common sources of renewable energy are distributed across the U.S. Through this activity, students and teachers gain familiarity with the living lab's GIS graphic interface and query functions, and are exposed to the available data in renewable energy databases, learning how to query to find specific information for specific purposes. The activity is intended as a "training" activity prior to conducting activities such as The Bright Idea activity, which includes a definitive and extensive end product (a feasibility plan) for students to create.

Students use real-world data to calculate the potential for solar and wind energy generation at their school location. After examining maps and analyzing data from the online Renewable Energy Living Lab, they write recommendations as to the optimal form of renewable energy the school should pursue.

Students use real-world data to evaluate the feasibility of solar energy and other renewable energy sources in different U.S. locations. Working in small groups, students act as engineers evaluating the suitability of installing solar panels at four company locations. They access data from the online Renewable Energy Living Lab from which they make calculations and analyze how successful solar energy generation would be, as well as the potential for other power sources at those locations. Then they summarize their results, analysis and recommendations in the form of feasibility plans prepared for a CEO.

Learn about the physics of resistance in a wire. Change its resistivity, length, and area to see how they affect the wire's resistance. The sizes of the symbols in the equation change along with the diagram of a wire.

Learn about the physics of resistance in a wire. Change its resistivity, length, and area to see how they affect the wire's resistance. The sizes of the symbols in the equation change along with the diagram of a wire.

Through this activity, students come to understand the environmental design considerations required when generating electricity. The electric power that we use every day at home and work is usually generated by a variety of power plants. Power plants are engineered to utilize the conversion of one form of energy to another. The main components of a power plant are an input source of energy that is used to turn large turbines, and a method to convert the turbine rotation into electricity. The input sources of energy include fossil fuels (coal, natural gas and oil), wind, water, nuclear materials and refuse. This activity focuses on how much energy can be converted to electricity from many of these input sources. It also considers the impact of the by-products associated with using these natural resources, and looks at electricity requirements. To do this, students research and evaluate the electricity needs of their community, the available local resources for generating electricity, and the impact of using those resources.

The electric grid are networks that carry electricity from central power plants to our homes. But how exactly is electricity generated and brought to our door? And what needs to change if we’re going to transition to generating “clean” electricity? In this episode of TILclimate (Today I Learned: Climate), Harvey Michaels, lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, joins host Laur Hesse Fisher to explain the history and perhaps surprising features of the electric grid, and what changes are in store for the future.

In this mini-episode of TILclimate (Today I Learned: Climate), host Laur Hesse Fisher breaks down what we’re actually talking about when we use the word “energy”. In a few minutes, we cover the difference between energy and electricity, and the big picture strategy for how to reduce CO2 for each.