Researching Windmills

We have intentions of building a windmill that lights a small light bulb.

In order to provide a common, concrete experience with a windmill, our amazing friend, Pippin, brought us a windmill to put up just outside of our classroom. Now instead of people talking about that one windmill they saw that one time on that one family trip, the children can talk about our windmill. Everyone will know exactly what we are talking about.

One question that came up in our previous planning session really stuck with us and had us stumped. The wind doesn't always blow the same direction. We think our windmill should be able to move so that it can face whichever way the wind blows. But how should it move? Should people move it? What if we aren't at school when it changes directions? Do we just loose all of that good wind?

 There is no better teacher than experience. So we set to work to put up a windmill that we could study, to answer our question and help us think further about our own plans.

 There was lots of measuring to which one students commented, "I just thought Pippin was a builder guy. I didn't know he was a mathematician too!"

 As Pippin pounded the wooden stakes into the ground, the children were fascinated by the vibration they could feel in the ground. They would try to see just how far away they could stand and still feel it.

 They were also intrigued that they could feel the vibration while standing on the benches.

Of course, other classes that see the windmill stop by to see what is going on. Unfortunately, there wasn't much wind the first day we put it up.

 The next day was much windier. The children were thrilled to see that the windmill was facing a different direction and spinning vigorously as they pulled up in their cars to get dropped off for school. Some even rolled down their windows to cheer. They spent the first moments of the school day observing. What did they notice? What might help us when we build our own windmill?

"Which ever way the wind is blowing the windmill turns to face. All that air hits the panel in the back and it turns it, like opening a door. First is faces that way [demonstrates with his hands] now it is facing this way."

"But where should we put the tail on our windmill? Should we put it behind the generator or in front of the generator? Because that one doesn't have a generator like ours will."

"When it does spin to face the wind, the pole it sits on doesn't spin. There is a part that fits inside the pole that moves."

One student even tried to get the windmill he had created, in the studio with Anna, to spin in the wind alongside the research windmill.

It was fun to be in our room the next day to hear other classes run by on their way to PE shouting, "It's spinning! It's Spinning! Look!"I wonder what brain seeds it might be planting for the other children at Sabot.

Every good school needs a Pippin!!