Windmills

Objective: To see how windmills do work.

Equipment: Pinwheels (pattern & directions), homemade windmill (see illustration below).

Activity: Observe how wind makes a pinwheel work. Talk about how a windmill could do work using wind.

Construct the Pringles can windmills and attach a weight to the end wheel opposite the wind vanes. (Energy and Power, page 21. See picture below.)

1. Have children blow on the windmill vanes to make the string wind up. How much effort does this require?

2. Discuss how changes in wind velocity effect how fast the windmill turns and how much work can be done. What kinds of work could wind do?

Extension: From play in the classroom we looked for examples of windmills in our reading books, and around town. We found a great windmill at Thistledown farms that was set to pump water. It also gave us an example how the idea of a windsock would work as the large wind vane on the back of the windmill worked to turn the windmill into the wind.