Category: Science 9

Power Information Fluency

Part 1:

1. Share your findings in your own words with cited images Share

Charles F. Brush created the first wind turbine in 1988. Wind Turbines are the modernized and improved version of windmills.

The sole responsibility of wind turbines is to try to reduce our overall usage of fossil fuels, as burning fossil fuels is negatively impacting our environment.

In addition, they consist of many parts that contribute to the production of electricity. At the base of every wind turbine is a foundation, which is a concrete structure particularly designed to ensure that a wind turbine can stay stable even through fierce windstorms. The size of the foundation depends on the size of the wind turbine it is stabilizing, and they can be found underground. The tower of a wind turbine is connected to the foundation. In addition a wind turbine consists of blades (usually three), a rotor, a shaft, as well as a generator. As these blades are moving, parts of the kinetic energy in the wind travel down the blades and make its way to the rotor. The rotor is the piece that connects the blades to the shaft of the interior, so the kinetic energy that is transferred to the rotor is moved to the shaft. Since the rotor is connected to the shaft, as the blades are spinning due to the energy in the wind and the rotor is moving, the shift rotates as well. The shaft is connected to the generator, so as the shaft revolves, the generator spins and the kinetic energy converts into electricity.

Image result for wind turbine diagram

A wind turbine changes the kinetic energy from the wind into electricity, using blades that rotate in a clockwise or counter-clockwise motion (depending on where the wind is flowing from since the blades need to face the wind to be able to convert the kinetic energy within the wind to electricity). The action of the blades turning towards the other direction to face the wind is known as “yaw”. Wind turbines also vary in speed and size. The speed at which the blades of a wind turbine rotate at ranges from 13 to 20 rotations per minute, as well as longer blades capture more kinetic energy which means it produces more electricity than a shorter blade would. Wind turbines commonly have 3 blades, however occasionally you can come across one with two blades.

There is a vast difference between windmills and wind turbines, although people misunderstand them for being the same thing. A windmill is a device that is powered by the wind, and takes the energy from the wind and turns it into mechanical energy.

They are mainly found on farms, and assist in water pumping and milling grains including wheat and corn. Windmills were one of the first wind-powered machine that could create usable energy by harnessing it from the wind. Wind turbines, on the other hand, are a revision of windmills and take the kinetic energy from the wind and convert it into electricity.

The electricity that wind turbines generate is used in houses, schools, and numerous buildings. Windmills and wind turbines achieve the same task, turning wind energy into electricity, however they have individual processes to achieve this task. Wind turbines also have an abundance of positive aspects to them, such as they are cost efficient, eco-friendly for the most part, and they cut down the amount of fossil fuels that are burned and released into the environment. The main negative impact of wind turbines is that thousands of birds and bats are fatally wounded due to coming into contact with wind turbines. Below within the statement, I offered a reasonable solution to this reoccurring problem.

2. Make a statement to Justin Trudeau about the implications of your findings

Dear Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Wind turbines should continue to be installed all throughout Canada since it is an eco-friendly solution to creating electricity out of the energy that is found in the wind. Canada should continue to invest in wind turbines, as they take energy from the environment without creating repercussions and problems that leave a negative impact on the air quality or climate. Burning fossil fuels is leaving harmful and dangerous gases in the air that is damaging the Earth, and wind turbines create none of these harmful gases. We can power our houses, schools, and business other ways than creating green house gas emissions and burning coal. Wind will never run out, so we should take advantage of this opportunity. Steel is also the main material that a wind turbine consists of, and it is affordable, durable, and there is a surplus amount of it. Wind turbines are also very inexpensive considering that they can last for around 20-25 years, as well as wind is free and there is an infinite amount of it to fuel the wind turbines. Establishing these wind turbines would also open up an abundance of job opportunities, since it will take a while to get them all built, and that can potentially raise the economy in all of Canada drastically. In addition, investing in wind turbines would be a very wise choice since wind turbines can be built upon farms and ranches. The wind turbines would barely take up space on these plots of land, as well as the owners and farmers of the land would be paid rent fees, and therefore increase their yearly income. There is currently over $1 billion dollars of investment in wind turbines (wind energy), which is fairly good since we have over 6596 wind turbines in Canada. The province of Nova Scotia is leading the way in terms of investing in wind turbines and increasing the amount of wind farms all around the region, with over 300 wind turbines converting wind energy into electricity. We should see that that number of wind turbines continues to grow. However, we must keep in mind that wind turbines are injuring and killing thousands of birds and bats in all of Canada. It is in your power and responsibility to come up with an idea that decreases this number while we can still utilize wind power energy, although I suggest to establish a netting system around the wind turbines that goes all the way around wind farms. The nets would allow the wind to pass through, and would keep the birds and bats out. It would be very tight and secure to guarantee that it wouldn’t get caught in the wind turbine or ruin any pieces of equipment. Please consider that the best location for these wind turbines would be in an area with a good amount of wind that is located near towns or locations that use energy. Think about the future of a Canada that is resting upon your shoulders and use your power wisely.

Thank you for your time. I hope you take my suggestions into consideration.

Julia Shaw, grade 9 Riverside student.

Part 2:

  1. What questions do you need to research in order to research your topic?
  • Who invented the wind turbine?
  • Why did someone feel the need to add wind turbines to the growing list of energy producers?
  • Are wind turbines eco-friendly?
  • How are wind turbines different from other common energy producers, such as burning fossil fuels?
  • How do wind turbines impact animals?
  • What is a wind turbine made out of?
  • How do wind turbines work?
  • Why should we invest in wind turbines?
  • How expensive is the wind turbine?
  • Where are wind turbines located currently?
  • What are the consequences of building wind turbines?

2. What new or familiar digital tools did you try to use as you worked through this project?

Throughout this project I utilized various tools to enhance the reliability of my content, as well as to broaden my understanding of wind turbines. The new digital tools I used throughout this project included Gale, the Canadian Encyclopedia, and Destiny. The familiar digital tools I used throughout this project included Google, Pexels, YouTube, and Citation Machine. These new and familiar digital tools and search engines provided me with the information I needed to complete this project, and made checking over my findings as well as citing sources much easier.

3. What was the process you used to investigate this topic?

While investing my topic, and researching information to understand more about wind turbines and why we should utilize them, I made sure to visit numerous sites to be certain that the information I was using wasn’t false. While doing so, although it took extra work and time, I found an abundance of credible cites and made sure a lot of my information wasn’t fake or wrong. I found that the more you scrolled down after asking a question on a search engine, such as google, you find more information that is both in-depth and isn’t cluttered in useless ads. As I was writing my paragraphs for this assignment, I made sure to take the main concept and idea of the information and re-organize and re-construct it into my own words. However, I still wrote down the citations for the sources I had used, since I can’t take full credit for the information because someone else took the time to research and upload their findings online for others to learn from. If I were to take credit for someone else’s accomplishment and ideas, that would be considered plagiarism.

4. How did you verify and cite the information you found?

To verify the information I found was accurate, as said above, I checked multiple sites to further confirm that I was not using false information to fuel my writing. When I read a paragraph or more from a website, I made sure to check multiple websites on that topic, and if the information I was finding was relevant to other websites I had used. As I was using various websites, I made sure to copy the link of the website, so that when I had finished researching for this project, I would be able to cite all of my sources to give all of the authors the credit they rightfully deserve. I used Citation Machine to help cite my websites, photo’s, and videos in the proper MLA format.

5. How did the process of completing this challenge go? What could you have done better?

I am very proud of my findings and how I put a lot of effort into this assignment to ensure that I am only handing in my best work. When completing this challenge, I found that it was a little difficult at first to get started with this assignment, since I did not really understand what I was supposed to complete. I found the rubric a tad confusing, however all of my questions had been answered in the process, and I felt a lot more confident about completing this assignment properly. At first it was difficult to find websites that directly held the information I needed to answer my questions, however I found that as time went on and I spent more time working on this assignment, I learned more about the more efficient techniques to researching. One aspect I noticed was that it was easier to find the information you needed when you made your question simpler, without all of these extra and cluttering words, and more to the point. Using key words and points made searching a lot faster, and saved me a lot of extra time.

If I were to do this assignment again, there is various aspects that I could have improved upon. Firstly, when researching the information for this project, I could have went more in depth about the issues of wind turbines. My main focus was on why wind turbines are good for the environment, however I made my argument seem very one sided, and should had included more information on its negative impacts. I did mention how birds and bats were being fatally injured by wind turbines, however there may be more problems with wind turbines. In addition, I found I could have made my writing more precise when creating a statement for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. If the aspect of the assignment, where we were to create a statement for Justin Trudeau, was supposed to realistic in terms of that Justin Trudeau would actually be reading my statement, my writing is very long and wordy, and if he were to in fact see my statement, he might not want to read it all. This would forfeit any chance I had at him extending the use of wind energy (wind turbines) all throughout Canada. In the end, otherwise the fact there is minor tweaks here or there, I am very pleased I managed to complete this assignment before the due date, with as much detail as I could muster. I learned quite a bit about wind turbines, and am fascinated by how they can turn the energy from the wind into electricity useable my buildings and houses. I hope that Canada decides to extend our green footprint and that we can eliminate the burning of fossil fuels in the future, to save our planet from irreversible casualties.

Citations:

“Buildings and Infrastructure.” Worldsteel, https://www.worldsteel.org/steel-by-topic/steel-markets/buildings-and-infrastructure.html. Web. December 7, 2019.

Fares, Robert. “Wind Energy Is One of the Cheapest Sources of Electricity, and It’s Getting Cheaper.” Scientific American Blog Network, Scientific American, 28 Aug. 2017, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/wind-energy-is-one-of-the-cheapest-sources-of-electricity-and-its-getting-cheaper/. Web. December 7, 2019.

“How Wind Energy Works.” New Zealand Wind Energy Association, http://www.windenergy.org.nz/wind-energy/the-facts. Web. December 7, 2019.

“Installed Capacity.” Canadian Wind Energy Association, https://canwea.ca/wind-energy/installed-capacity/.

Khillar, Sagar. “Difference Between.” Difference Between Similar Terms and Objects, 4 Oct. 2018, http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/difference-between-windmill-and-wind-turbine/. Web. December 7, 2019.

“Parts of a Wind Turbine.” Horizon Energy Curriculum, https://www.horizoncurriculum.com/supportmaterial/parts-of-a-wind-turbine/. Web. December 7, 2019.

“The Inside of a Wind Turbine.” Energy.gov, https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/inside-wind-turbine. Web. December 7, 2019.

“Third Planet Windpower.“ Third Planet Windpower, http://www.thirdplanetwind.com/energy/history.aspx. Web. December 7, 2019.

“What Is a Wind Turbine and How It Works?” ACCIONA, https://www.acciona.com/renewable-energy/wind-power/wind-turbines/. Web. December 7, 2019.

“What materials are used to make wind turbines?” What Materials Are Used to Make Wind Turbines?, https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-materials-are-used-make-wind-turbines?qt-news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products. Web. December 7, 2019.

“Wind Power – Renewable Energy Sources.” Default, https://www.nspower.ca/clean-energy/renewable-energy-sources/wind-power. Web. December 7, 2019.

“Wind Power.” Wind Power | The Canadian Encyclopedia, https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/wind-power. Web. December 7, 2019.

Photo Citations:

“Brown and Gray Windmill Beside Green Tree Under Blue Cloudy Sky during Day Time.” Free Stock Photos, https://www.pexels.com/photo/brown-and-gray-windmill-beside-green-tree-under-blue-cloudy-sky-during-day-time-161994/. Web. December 7, 2019.

Fulcher, Jonathan. “How Do Wind Turbines Produce Electricity?” Lexology, 17 July 2019, https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=aa96a2de-c1a5-4a70-b510-9ecc569d3ddf. Web. December 7, 2019.

“Low Angle Photography of Building.” Free Stock Photos, https://www.pexels.com/photo/low-angle-photography-of-building-1737779/. Web. December 7, 2019.

“Scenic View of Agricultural Field Against Sky during Sunset.” Free Stock Photos, https://www.pexels.com/photo/scenic-view-of-agricultural-field-against-sky-during-sunset-325944/. Web. December 7, 2019.
“Wind Turbine Landscape Photography.” Free Stock Photos, https://www.pexels.com/photo/afterglow-alternative-energy-clouds-dawn-532192/. Web. December 7, 2019.

“Woman Holding Her Child Walking Near Windmills.” Free Stock Photos, https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-holding-her-child-walking-near-windmills-122101/. Web. December 7, 2019.

Video Citations:

“How does a wind turbine work? | Sustainability – ACCIONA.” Sustainability – ACCIONA.  February 23, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=DILJJwsFl3w&feature=emb_logo.  Web. December 7, 2019.

“What Is a Wind Turbine and How It Works?” ACCIONA, https://www.acciona.com/renewable-energy/wind-power/wind-turbines/. Web. December 7, 2019.

 

A Fresh Look at the Periodic Table

Define and Discover:

The Science community has challenged us to establish a new way to organize and layout the periodic table, so that it is less time consuming and easier to navigate individual elements that seem to be difficult to quickly find. We must come up with an original design that is both creative and practical, and use our knowledge on Solution Fluency and Collaboration Fluency to aid us in the process.

  1. How many elements are on the periodic table?
  2. What are the different families on the periodic table?
  3. How can we utilize colour coding on our periodic table?
  4. Does anyone in my group have any ideas on how to make our project original?
  5. How do we want to present our project?
  6. How much in class time will we have to work on this project?
  7. How can we demonstrate our understanding of patterns and properties of elements?

Dream:

The original periodic table organizes the elements in a way that includes a lot of patterns. The atomic number increases by one as you go from left to right, and to the left there are metals, while to the right there is non-metals, and the metalloids separate them. We could make the periodic table easier to navigate by using different shapes and pictures. Drawings of each individual element could help those who have trouble reading the names, since they could just look at the pictures instead. We could also have brail on the periodic table that spells each of the elements name, symbol, and atomic number, so those who are visually impaired can also easily read the periodic table without having to get someone to read it to them.  Colour coding could also be used to our advantage, since every individual element could also be assigned their own colour to be able to easily find the element you are looking for. Every family/group could be allocated their own base colour, such as blue, purple, or red, and within that group, each element could have a different shade of the groups colour. For example, is the halogens were given purple, Chlorine could be a light purple, while Fluorine is a dark purple.  The shade of the colour could get darker as the atomic number increases. For groups such as transition metals, we could assign each row a different colour within it, since there wouldn’t be enough shades of any colour to be able to colour each element. We could also create a song, or even a video game version of our periodic table, so that if younger students are learning about chemistry, these creative ideas might entice them or interest them in learning more about the periodic table.

Design:

The periodic table will be divided into its families (hydrogen, alkali metals, alkaline earth metals, transition metals, metalloids, non-metals, halogens, noble gases, lanthanide series, and actinide series) and each family is assigned their own colour. Along with providing the information of the name, symbol, atomic number, and atomic mass of each element, we are also including the Lewis Symbol for each element as well. We are also adding what state of matter each element is in at room temperature, although we aren’t writing it down. Instead we are surrounding the element in a specific shape that corresponds to the element’s state of matter, which can either be a solid, liquid, or gas. If the element is a solid, we are drawing a square around it. If the element is a liquid, we are drawing a raindrop around it. If the element is a gas, we are drawing a gas bubble around it. We thought this would add a creative touch to our project, as well as show our understanding of each elements properties. The format of our periodic table will be very similar to the original, however instead of the families being connected with one another, we have separated them, and for families such as metalloids, we have placed the elements in a vertical line instead of having them scattered.

 

Deliver: 

Our periodic table is very similar to the original periodic table in the terms of the layout, and we can explain why we chose to keep most of the format the same. Scientists, as well as scholars and students, have been studying off of the original periodic table since Dmitri Mendeleev first organized the periodic table in 1869. If we were to change the order and shape of the periodic table’s layout, everyone who menorized where the elements were or even were familiar with where a few elements were located, would find it way harder to locate the element they need to find. None of the elements wouldn’t be where they had remembered it to be. If we changed it, it wouldn’t make it easier to navigate certain elements, it would just make it harder. Although, we did separate the different families located within the original periodic table so they were easier to distinguish. The different families are hydrogen alone (since it doesn’t belong to any other family), alkali metals, alkaline earth metals, transition metals, metalloids, non-metals, halogens, noble gases, lanthanide series, and the actinide series. Each family was also given their own colour so you can visually see where the different families are located. For example, let’s say you are trying to find calcium on the periodic table, and you know it is an alkaline earth metal. Instead of glancing over 117 elements before finding the one you need, you can just go to the alkaline earth metals section and locate it out of the 6 elements in that family. By colour coding the different families, you can easily tell what element is part of what family. In the original periodic table, the metalloids were scattered and it was hard to tell where they were. On our periodic table, you can just go to the metalloids family and it will have all the metalloids in order of atomic number. We also included the amount of valence electrons of each element along with what state it is in at room temperature. Instead of including these details in writing, which would crowd the other important information, we added a Lewis Symbol of each element’s atom and we used shapes to show what state the element is at room temperature. If the element is a gas at room temperature, we surrounded the information of the element in a gas cloud shape, if a liquid we used the shape of a raindrop, and if a solid we used a square. If you were looking for Bromine, and you knew it was a liquid at room temperature, there are only two elements that have this property, so it would be very easy to find it. Within each family, we placed the elements in order of atomic number going from lowest to highest to make it quicker to glance over the elements and find the one you need. In addition, we also added a legend at the top that described what colour represented what family, what the shapes depict, and explained the Lewis Symbols so people can fully understand our changes.

Debrief: 

I am proud of the outcome of my group’s periodic table, which was successful since we managed to complete it on time and hand it in on the due date. We had tried very hard to construct our periodic table while considering the fact that we had to make it easier to read. Lots of times we wanted to add more details and information, however we had to stop ourselves, since too much detail could make our project too confusing to read. I really like the way we laid out our project, and how we incorporated colour and shapes, although, there is definitely some aspects that we could have improved or added to our project to make it stand out better and be more creative. First of all, I think it would have been very creative to mold our periodic table into a scientific shape to make it more visually appealing. We kept the format of our periodic table basically the same as the original, since we are trying to make it easier for people to read. If we have it in a different order than the original, it will confuse people who used the original beforehand, since they memorized elements in certain areas, so if we change it, they wont know where to look. Putting our periodic table into the shape of a tree or another form of nature would have made our project more imaginative since all elements are found in nature, and the tree would represent that concept. Also, there is a group known as the post-transition metals on the periodic table, which include Aluminium (Al), Gallium (Ga), Indium (In), Tin (Sn), Thallium (Ti), Lead (Pb), Bismuth (Bi), and Flerovium (Fl). However, we hadn’t learned about them yet, so we placed them in the transition metals family. If we were to complete this project again, I would like to create a space for the post-transition metals, since they technically aren’t transition metals. In addition, I would also like to leave more space between the families. The size of our poster board limited the amount of space we had to draw our periodic table. It’s a little hard to tell, but if you were to observe our periodic table, we left space in between the families to make it easier for someone to find a certain family, since it’s hard to find what your looking for when it’s all clustered together. We also assigned each family a colour so you no one gets confused. If we were to establish another periodic table, I would prefer to spread out the families so that they are farther apart, since that will make the layout of our periodic table clearer.