Lesson Plan

How Can Work Be Done with Water Power? Activity A

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This How Can Work Be Done with Water Power? Activity A lesson plan also includes:

Environmentally friendly engineering teams construct a water wheel and experiment with its speed and the resulting amount of weight it can lift. Consider following this activity with two more of the same title by the same publisher when your class is exploring hydropower as an alternative source of energy.

23 Views 29 Downloads NGSS: Adaptable
Pros
  • Provides practice in model construction and scientific inquiry
  • A diagram is provided to help teams build the water wheel
  • Adaptable to Next Generation Science Standards for middle school engineering and technology
Cons
  • Materials require plastic gallon-sized milk jugs, which are getting harder to find; you could use small plastic tubs in place of the milk jugs, but you may need to drill rather than simply punch holes in the sides for the wire
  • No written procedure for constructing the water wheel; teams will need to rely solely on the diagram