Green energy: What is the best design for a wind turbine?

This resource provides a set of videos of a practical investigation aimed at supporting working scientifically in the classroom and relating science to real world experiences, presented by Professor Brian Cox and Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock. In this video, Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock joins a teacher to demonstrate a green energy-themed classroom activity, including set-up, demonstration and the experiment being taught with a secondary age science class.

In the second video, we visit Andrew Scott from Orbital Marine Power to find out about their work on tidal turbines, and in the final video we visit Dr Billy Wu at Imperial College London to learn about his research into electro-chemical, low carbon energy technologies. The second and third videos have a focus on the skills required to work in these areas and offer young people an insight into which subjects or careers they may wish to pursue later in school and beyond. These resources could be a useful tool for careers advisors and form tutors to use during careers discussions. There are accompanying resources available to download.

This activity is based on an original resource, called The Wind Power Challenge designed by Practical Action for a British Science Association CREST award (https://www.crestawards.org), who have kindly agreed to its use in the Brian Cox School Experiments.

This resource has been provided by The Royal Society.

Classroom experiment

Andrew Scott from Orbital Marine Power

Dr Billy Wu at Imperial College London