Category Archives: Science 9

how things work -solar panels

Solar panels

  1. Panels hat take energy from the sun and use it for energy. This is a renewable energy source. The problem that our technology is trying to fix is to use less non renewable energy and more renewable energy. They reduce the amount of money on your electricity bills for people in sunny areas. People in sunny places like California or Arizona can save money if they use solar panels.

The parts of the solar panels system.

The first and the most obvious of the parts is the Solar Panels itself. The solar panel collects the sunlight and turns it into electricity. These are usually on the roofs of houses. Another part of the solar panel system is the mounting racks. The solar panels are attached by one of three things; on roofs, on free standing poles in arrays and direct on the ground. Solar Panels connected to the roof are the most common while the ground ones are the least common. The system has a DC disconnect who’s job is to just disconnect the system from the house so maintenance can be done safely. They also have an inverter that converts power from the panels and batteries that produce Dc power to the appliances which run on AC power. The ac breaker, ac panel and circuit breaker connects the power source to the electrical circuits in your home. The circuit breakers make sure that the appliances don’t take in too much electricity causing a fire hazard. When the appliance needs too much electricity the breaker will interrupt the flow of electricity.   Battery packs are also part of the system and are used during the night or on cloudy days when the sun isn’t shining, and the solar panels are unable to produce electricity. If you didn’t have battery packs, you would have power for only half of the day. The charge control or the charge regulator maintains the amount of voltage in the batteries.

 

The most common element in solar panels is silicon. The atom of Silicon can hold up to eight electrons in their Valence shell but only carry four electrons naturally. Silicon bonds strongly together making this the material that the plates of the solar panels are made from. The Solar Panels are made from Silicon because electrons flow through it easily. Silicon can’t create electricity on its own, so it comes together with its chemically combined with Phosphorous and Boron. Phosphorous has five electrons that it can share with Silicon making it negatively charged. Boron has only three electrons to share resulting in the charge being positive. Sunlight sends several different particles, but photon is the only one used in the solar panels. If the panels are facing right, the photon from the sun rays hits the combination of Silicon and Phosphorous and eventually forces the extra electron out of its shell. These negative electrons are attracted to the phosphorous-boron mix which is attached to wires. The electrons then move through the wires connected into the home or whatever is getting charged.

Evaluate

The strengths of solar panels is that it’s a renewable energy source. The solar panels are using the sun as electricity. This lets us not use other non renewable energy source, hydro dams being the most common in British Colombia because of all the water we have in the area. By using solar panels its helping use less gas and other resources that are destroying or damaging our planet as well. Another good thing about solar panels is that it can cost less for people in sunny areas. People in sunny areas will be able to collect a lot of electricity from the panels because it doesn’t rain that much and will get plenty of use out of it in the process. The weaknesses are that it can cost too much for some people and that it isn’t effective in the rain. The price to have solar panels isn’t cheap. They cost more than electricity that you get through non renewable energy sources. The only exception to this is if you live in a sunny place. The problem is that not all places are really sunny. Solar panels are also useless in the rain. This piece of technology relies on the sun to be shining and when its not it has nothing to generate electricity from. This makes us have to use a different energy source not good for the environment.

I think this is a good idea to fix our problem of not using renewable energy, but it isn’t perfect in the slightest. There are several times during the year that the panels do nothing and are just sitting there. The solution is a good idea but it definitely needs improvement.

Fresh look at the Periodic Table

Explanation

My partner and I decided to first organize the periodic table by its most common ionic charge, so we made a wheel and wrote out every single charge from negative three to positive seven and all the charges in between. If elements had the same ionic charge, we organized it by its atomic number. This also orders it by how many protons as well as electrons are in each atom.  By ordering it by its atomic number, we also ordered by it’s atomic mass from least to greatest.

 

Another way we organized our periodic table was by colouring the solids, liquids, and gases different colours. The solids were kept white, the liquids were coloured blue and the gases were all coloured yellow. We also coloured the alkali metals, alkali earth metals, halogens, and noble gases’ symbols and gave them each their own shape symbol. The Alkali metals are coloured purple and have a purple star above their element symbol. The Alkali earth metals are coloured green with a square symbol, while, colouring the Halogens orange and giving them a triangle symbol, and the noble gases were pink with a circle on top.

 

The last way we organized our periodic table is that we separated the metals and the non-metals by drawing a red staircase around all the non metals.

 

 

6 D’s

 

Define and Discover:

  • We are trying to re-organize/re-create the periodic table of elements to make it more creative, more efficient, more visually appealing, or more effective.

 

  • How could you make it more visually appealing without decreasing its effectiveness?
  • What should be kept the same?
  • What variations have already been created?

 

Dream:

 

What information does the periodic table tell you?

 

  • The periodic table tells us the number of protons, neutrons, and electrons, as well as the atomic mass and how many elements there are. It also tells us which elements are metals, non-metals, solids, liquids, and gases, as well as the ionic charge(s) of each.

 

How could you arrange it differently based on its chemical and physical properties?

 

  • We could reorganize the periodic table in a number of ways:

 

  • We could arrange it by state (solid, liquid, gas)
  • We could switch the families and periods around
  • We could order the elements from most common to least common (rarity)
  • We could order them by their Ionic charge from positive to negative.
  • We could order them from the element’s number of neutrons or electrons
  • We could arrange by how many electron shells they have
  • We could order them by the element’s chemical properties such as reactivity, magnetism, etc.

 

What different shapes could be used?

 

  • Use different shapes for non-metals and different shapes for metals.
  • Do the same for solids, liquids, and gases.
  • Shape it all into a circle or other shape.
  • We could have different shapes for synthetics

 

How can you use colour?

 

  • Have each family a different colour, arrange by colour of element, colour each period, colour by ionic charge, colour by atomic mass.

 

Design:

  • Our plan is to organize each element into groups and see how we can keep them together once we order them on the periodic table.
  • We plan to use trial and error to look at each of our options and see which one is best.
  • Once we have figured out what we are going to do, waste no time creating it, adding in things as we see fit.

 

Deliver:

 

My partner and I decided to first organize the periodic table by its most common ionic charge, so we made a wheel and wrote out every single charge from negative three to positive seven and all the charges in between. If elements had the same ionic charge, we organized it by its atomic number. This also orders it by how many protons as well as electrons are in each atom.  By ordering it by its atomic number, we also ordered by it’s atomic mass from least to greatest.

 

Another way we organized our periodic table was by colouring the solids, liquids, and gases different colours. The solids were kept white, the liquids were coloured blue and the gases were all coloured yellow. We also coloured the alkali metals, alkali earth metals, halogens, and noble gases’ symbols and gave them each their own shape symbol. The Alkali metals are coloured purple and have a purple star above their element symbol. The Alkali earth metals are coloured green with a square symbol, while, colouring the Halogens orange and giving them a triangle symbol, and the noble gases were pink with a circle on top.

 

The last way we organized our periodic table is that we separated the metals and the non-metals by drawing a red staircase around all the non metals.

 

Debrief:

 

My partner and I did a good job to create our version of the periodic table of elements, but it wasn’t perfect and there is something we can always improve on.

 

The first improvement is that we needed to figure out what strategy we were going to use to organize our periodic table a lot soon then we did. We spent too much time trying to figure out what we were going to do, that it wasted a huge chunk of the time we were given. The consequence of taking too long on the decision-making aspect of the project was that it put us behind schedule at the end of the first day. If we had come to a decision earlier, we would’ve had more time to work on everything else.

 

The second thing that we could improve on is making a good copy. The copy that we handed in wasn’t as neat as it could have been and was overall a little messy. We didn’t have enough time make a better copy because we spent too much time on the organization of our periodic table. We could have made a good copy that showed the true extent of our capabilities, including our creativity and knowledge. Our core competencies would be shown stronger if we had not spent so much time deciding. Even with these mistakes I think that we a pretty good job at creating our version of the periodic table giving it a new look that could help people in the future.