Implementation and integration notes for Energy and the Environment activities

These notes will help educators implement the activities for this phase and theme. They are included to provide an idea of the scope of the activities.

The notes included below are grouped by grade level.

Division I (grades K - 3) | Division II (grades 4 - 6)
Division III (grades 7 - 9) | Division IV (grades 10 - 12)

DIVISION I

A. Learner Outcomes

• Students will appreciate the need for a compass when familiar landmarks are not discernible.
• Students will develop an understanding that like poles of a magnet attract and that unlike poles repel.
• Students will understand how we "know" which end of a magnet is north and which is south.
• Students will recognize cardinal directions.
• Students will classify objects according to whether they are attracted by a magnet.
• Students will magnetize a sewing needle.
• Students will recognize that a freely moving magnet will align itself in a North-South position.

Students begin Phase 1 with an activity that makes them aware of how easy it is to lose direction when familiar landmarks are removed (e.g. a blizzard). This is a very relevant topic for the Everest expedition team members as weather can change drastically in such an extreme environment.

Students will complete two other activities in this phase, exploring magnetism and how it relates to directions and compasses. Students conclude the activities with a small challenge to construct a simple compass using easy-to-find materials.

These activities lead directly into the Phase 2 challenge, where students will use a compass to find their way through a simple orienteering course.

C. On-line Opportunities!

Involve your students in the expedition from the start! Phase 1 suggestions:

• Check out the CBC Newsworld website of Byron Smith's Everest 2000 Expedition. You'll find information about what the team will take with them for supplies (Do they take compasses or any other equipment for determining their location and direction?)
• E-mail Byron Smith and the Expedition team at info@everest2000.ca. Students can ask questions about the team's plans for finding their way around if a storm starts quickly. Ask them how they choose their route up the mountain. How do they make sure they are going the way they plan everyday? Do the Sherpas (high altitude people from Tibet who immigrated to Nepal in the 16th and 17th centuries) know the way without compasses or maps?

  NOTE: Be sure to scan the website, including the kids' questions page, before e-mailing questions. The expedition team has posted quite a bit of information about the trip and will ONLY answer questions that are not already answered on the site.

  For questions related to Phase 1, Energy and the Environment activities, please use the subject heading: Compass

D. Preview of Division I activities for Phases 1 - 4, Energy and the Environment

In order to help you prepare, please see the following list of Energy and the Environment activities for each of the phases for Division I. Please note that along with the activities, each phase includes a challenge. Two or more activities will contribute to the students' building skills in order to complete the challenge and solve the problem.

Phase 1

• Who needs a compass?
• Discovering the "Law of Magnets"
• Why does a compass always point North?
• Challenge: Making a Compass

Phase 2

• Bread crumb trail
• Challenge: Simple Orienteering

Phase 3

• How can you light a bulb? (i.e. discovering the necessary conditions to light a bulb - prediction sheets)
• How does a battery work? (implications for series vs. parallel circuits)
• Water analogy (with syringe, T-connector, tubing)
• Challenge: Wire a House

• Challenge: Design switches for the house that you wired

DIVISION II

A. Learner Outcomes

Students will:

• Examine the importance that electricity plays in our daily lives.
• Demonstrate understanding of how electrolytes can be used as conductors of electricity.
• Construct a voltaic pile which will deflect the needle of a multi meter or provide power for a simple LED.
• Describe the flow of electrical current within the circuit.
• Define the terms electrode, electrolyte, cell, voltage and battery.

B. General Information

This strand of energy activities focusing on batteries will continue for phases 1 and 2. activities will build and lead to a student challenge at the end of Phase 2 that will involve students designing an environmentally friendly battery that is capable of lighting an LED.

In Phase 1 students will examine the cultural and environmental impact that electricity has on our daily lives by comparing standards of living in Canada with those in Nepal. This will involve examining the social, environmental and economic impact that batteries have on society.

Students will understand how batteries:

• Meet our basic needs;
• Produce an electrical current;
• Can have a detrimental impact on our environment.

C. On-line Opportunities!

Involve your students in the Everest 2000 expedition from the start! Phase 1 suggestions:

• Meet Dr. Dave Irvine-Halliday through the online description of the Nepal Light Project, an important part of the Everest 2000 education program. There is also background material on the concepts behind the project. Throughout the expedition, Dave will be conducting experiments with you, answering questions via E-mail and showing you some of his work.

• E-mail Dave any of your questions regarding the Nepal Light Project at info@everest2000.ca.

• E-mail Dave your students' researched perspectives and opinions on the potential pros and cons of providing more electricity to the people of Nepal.

• Science activities for this phase are mainly related to the batteries section of the Energy and the Environment Background Information.

Phases 1 and 2:

Challenge: How can we design an environmentally friendly battery that is capable of a minimum output?

Phase 1

• Electricity in Our Daily Lives
• Finding Electrolytes (What conducts / insulates (liquids) Why?)
• Make your own Voltaic Pile (How does a battery work? Invent theories, test implications with various circuits, voltaic piles)

Phase 2

• What factors affect the strength of an electromagnet? (manner of winding, the number of coils, circumference of core, type of core, neatness of wraps)
• Electroplating (copper sulphate)
• What factors affect the efficiency of a battery? (concentration and type of electrolyte, electrodes, exposed surface area, number of cells, temperature) The focus is on fair testing and the use of a matrix to investigate combinations of variables.

Phases 3 and 4

• Resistors (Electricity to Melt Water, LEDs)
• Series and parallel circuits
• Enrichment: adjustable switch, beam
• Ohm's Law
• Challenge: How can we design a headlamp that will light 4 LEDs with optimum optical output?

DIVISION III and IV

A. Learner Outcomes

Students will:

• Understand that a current travelling in a wire will create a magnetic field.
• Construct a galvanometer.

B. General Information

The activities for Divisions III and IV in this phase overlap into Phase 2 of the expedition, so plan to complete these four activities anytime from February to the first week of March. The activities are designed to build skills in order to prepare your students to successfully engage in a challenge, which you will find in the educational material for Phase 2, online February 1.

These four activities, as well as the challenge and upcoming activities in phases one through five, are all related to the work of Dr. Dave Irvine-Halliday, an Electrical Engineering professor at the University of Calgary, and his Nepal Light Project. For more information on his work, please see the online description of the Nepal Light Project. There is also background material on the concepts behind the project.

Dave's work involves providing efficient and economical electricity through what he calls 'Pico-Power' to the people of Nepal who are using non-rechargeable battery-run flashlights and unhealthy and dangerous kerosene lanterns as their main sources of light. Students will learn about his basic designs using white LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) as the light source. They'll also learn how the energy is produced through either people-powered pedal generators or, as Dave's other research is currently focused, through pico-power wind generators.

The upcoming challenge for students will be to construct a hand generator that is capable of providing enough energy to light a WLED (White Light Emitting Diode). In the first lesson students will make a galvanometer using wire, batteries and a compass. In subsequent lessons the students will calibrate their galvanometers using batteries, construct a simple hand generator, and then work on simplifying and perfecting their generators. The ultimate challenge for these two phases is to construct the optimum generator using the materials outlined and to define the meaning of 'optimum.'

C. On-line Opportunities!

E-mail Dr. Dave Irvine-Halliday with questions that you and your students have as you are completing these activities leading to, and including, the Phase 2 Challenge. Before sending any questions to the Everest 2000 expedition team, it is important to research the material provided on the website first. If the answers cannot be found through this resource, then the team will be happy to review your questions.

E-mail should be sent to the education coordinator at info@everest2000.ca.

IMPORTANT: Your E-mails regarding the Phase 1 and 2 activities, including the generator challenge, must have the subject header "Hand Generator Challenge Question" in order to be viewed.

Please send all questions by the deadline March 15, 2000. We have to set these parameters so that the team can respond to the most current and relevant questions.

Deadline for hand generator questions: March 15, 2000
Subject Header: Hand Generator Challenge Question

D. Preview of Division II activities for Phases 1 - 4, Energy and the Environment

Phases 1 and 2

• Construct a galvanometer (How can we design and calibrate a compass for use as a galvanometer?)
• Calibrate the galvanometer
• Make a generator
• Study variables affecting the generation of current (How do different variables such as circumference of coil, speed of magnet and number of coils, affect the amount of current generated?)

Phase 2

• Challenge: Design a hand-powered generator that could light an LED (eg red)

Phases 3 and 4

• How can we develop convenient switches?
• How can we use mirrors to focus light?
• How can we vary the brightness of the lamp? (Ohm's Law)
• How can we design an effective head strap or band?
• Challenge: Design a Head Lamp with a unique switch, variable brightness, and adjustable beam width.