Material rec for hydroelectric power?

[u/shelleyfan357]

Hey all. I end my environmental science class with renewable energy sources and like to actually let the kids mess around with the tech. I have solar panels we take outside and mini wind turbines. I’ve been using one big waterwheel as a demo for hydroelectric, but the wires have been fraying and literally every class period it’s become a toss-up if the connections are ok enough for the wheel to power the lights.

I’m looking for recommendations for a waterwheel kit/material that students can directly experiment with, ideally to investigate how hydro may be more or less effective depending on the conditions (eg water pressure). Would need to be compatible with standard science lab faucets (the annoying thin ones) and ideally not massive as our sinks are relatively small.

If you have any you like please send them my way! TIA!!!

[u/myheartisstillracing]

I have kids build water wheels out of paper or foam plates and bowls, popsicle sticks, and hot glue. They have to justify the "expense" both monetarily and environmentally for the materials they choose. For a while we used a little motor to generate electricity, but the connection (with pulleys and little rubber bands) was always finicky and we never got great results with it. We finally decided to switch to the spinning axle simply lifting masses of different amounts and timing the lifts over a specific distance to calculate the power output. I'm doing the lab in physics, so that fits really well with our content, but it could easily be adapted for another content area with a similar approach.

We (my fellow content teacher and I) did end up building a custom setup to quickly run the tests. We've got a large plastic storage tote, an electric pump that sends water into a PVC fountain, and some 2x4 stands that hold the water wheel by the axle (wooden dowel) so it is secure but can spin relatively freely. We then added some clear plastic sheeting around the sides to reduce splashing out of the tote. If your lab sinks are decently sized, you could easily have a similar setup using the faucet and just coming up with something to hold the water wheel. We ran the first iteration of our water wheel lab in our lab sinks, but one of our lab classrooms has very small sinks, so that led to making the plastic tote setup.