From Trash to Gas: Biomass Energy
Have you ever dreamed of a world where you could take the scraps from last night's dinner and toss them into your car's fuel tank and make gas? Well, we're not quite in "Back to the Future" yet, but in this energy science fair project, you'll discover that food scraps, dead plants, sawdust, and other decaying organic matter, called
biomass are a rich source of energy. You can get energy out of biomass by burning it, turning it into a liquid, or by turning it into a gas called
biogas. You've probably burned biomass (like dead wood) before if you've ever built a campfire, and you've seen biogas being produced if you've ever watched cows happily munching on green grass. The cows eat a type of biomass (grass or hay) and turn it into the biogas, methane, in their digestive tracts. In this energy science fair project, you'll compare the amounts of biogas produced by different types of biomass.
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Veggie Power! Making Batteries from Fruits and Vegetables
Did you know that you can get electricity out of a potato? In this project you will learn how do build a simple battery using a variety of different fruits and vegetables - REALLY! You'll be able to figure out things like: How many lemons does it take to turn on a light bulb? Does an orange make a better battery than a potato? Can you use each segment of a grapefruit to make a super-grapefruit battery? You will also learn some of the basics of electricity and circuits: What is voltage? What is current? What is resistance? How much power can you get out of a veggie battery? Does an orange battery run out of "juice"?
So, do a little produce shopping and then learn about batteries and electricity.
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Green Your PC: Help Your Computer Save Power
Is your PC an energy hog? Check out this science fair project to determine how much power your PC really uses, and if it
is an energy hog, how you can reduce its appetite for energy. You'll learn how to profile and streamline your computer's power usage, while still enjoying every feature of your machine.
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Tireless Tides: Extracting Energy from Ocean Tides
Renewable energy is the energy that is extracted from natural sources, such the Sun (solar), earth (geothermal), wind, and water (hydropower). These sources are renewable because they can be replenished by the same natural sources within a short period of time. Hydropower energy is extracted from moving water, like ocean wave energy and tidal energy. In this energy science fair project, you will make a model of a tidal barrage (also known as a dam) and investigate how emptying the tidal barrage through different-sized tunnels affects energy production.
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Leaky Clues to Dam Design: How Reservoir Height Affects Hydroelectric Power Production
It's hard to believe that the same water that you use every day to quench your thirst, cook with, bathe in, swim in, and wash your clothes and dishes, is capable of another trick—it can make electricity! Electricity can be generated through the
flow or through the
fall of water. A big, fast-flowing river, for instance, contains a lot of moving energy that provides enough pressure to turn the blades of a turbine and run an electric generator. This same pressure can also be created though through the fall of water from a great height. Dams are the way we store water and raise it to a great height to create pressure. The more water that is stored, the higher the height of the reservoir becomes, and the greater the pressure that is available to run an electric generator. In this energy and power science fair project, you'll make a small model of a dam and poke holes at different points along the dam wall to investigate the places where the pressure and the potential for generating electricity is the greatest.
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Now You're Cooking!
Here's a project that uses direct solar power, gathering the sun's rays for heating/sterilizing water or cooking. It's a low-cost technology that seems to have everything going for it. Does it work? Can you find ways to improve it? Find out with this project.
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Solar Speedway
Solar power is hot these days. Gleaming, black solar panels soak up rays on more and more rooftops of homes and businesses providing a clean, alternative source of heat and electricity. You might guess that different times of the day yield different levels of solar power. But just how much does the sun's position in the sky affect the power that solar cells and panels can generate? That's the question this project is all about.
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How Does Solar Cell Output Vary with Incident Light Intensity?
Solar cells are an alternative method for generating electricity directly from sunlight. With this project, you can get down to the atomic level and learn about the world of solid-state electronics as you investigate how solar cells work. Your experiment will measure the effect of changing light intensity on power output from the solar cell. A possible variation would be to investigate the effect of changing the color of the light.
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A Bright Idea for Saving Energy
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In the U.S., lighting homes and businesses accounts for 22% of all electric power consumption (Raloff, 2006). That's $55 billion worth of electricity, or the output of 100 large power plants...
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Unleash the Power of a Pinwheel!
How do you feel when you ride your bike into a strong wind? Do your legs feel like lead? How about when the wind is at your back? Does that make you feel ready for the Tour de France? In this science fair project, you'll discover that wind-powered devices, like pinwheels, also react in different ways to the direction of the wind.
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Index of Energy & Power Project Ideas |
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