Students in Stratford’s fourth- and fifth-grade science club worked together at their final club meeting to build wind turbines from kits. They explored the different ways that the blades could be constructed in order to be most effective, experimenting with materials such as corrugated plastic and balsa wood. After building the turbine, they tested different blade shapes to see which worked most effectively. The wind turbine project grew out of a workshop club advisor Erin Hegmann attended connecting Common Core Learning Standards to the Next Generation Science Standards (http://www.nextgenscience.org/next-generation-science-standards).
“The students were challenged by the project and truly enjoyed working together to explore alternate energy production and test their different blade designs,” explained Hegmann.
