Science Project “Build a Wind Turbine”

What to do when the grade 7 science project is to “Build a Wind Turbine”

Courtesy of:  Esther Wrightman

We had a dilemma. Thomas’ science project was due a few days back – it’s late. He was refusing to do it, and I wasn’t really encouraging it either. They had to build a (you guessed it)… wind turbine. Yeah, you can imagine how that went over.

But then a light went on and I said, “You can still do it, but you have to show them the reality. It isn’t a pretty white thing in the field spinning away free electricity. You need transmission lines, homes, substation, that kind of shit. Oh yeah and dead birds”. It’s called inspiration, anything to make a science project like this palatable.

The turbine spins well too (when the hair dryer is on), but it has a tendency to succumb to “component liberation” now and then. Fairly dramatic when that happens.

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