PEN wiki

HSSP Class 1:

(Review on how the class went, and less so on the lesson materials, I think… I can add more lesson specifics later, but here's an initial brain-dump at least:)

I think the class went really well, although we ran low on time. We started out by having all the kids talking to each other, and kept the class very open (“tell us if you're not having fun or something doesn't make sense, we can change it!”, “if you find cool technologies or projects online, or have questions, feel free to bring them in and we can talk about them”, “class is about exploring things together and having fun building, so as little lecturing as possible!”). Having the kids comfortable with each other and open to talking about whatever helped a lot, I think. (We had everyone sit in a circle at the front of class, and introduce themselves, and their favorite cereal and what they would want their energy-related super power to be :P)

That said, the class did feel a bit lecture-heavy, but I think we may have gotten a bit carried away talking about electricity before going outside to measure cells. Starting with some cool demos would have been a good idea (I brought in a couple cool technologies related to solar / electricity, but nothing super-exciting). Maybe we could talk about some cool solar technologies at the beginning or something? Or having the voltage/current part of the lesson be a bit more hands-on, with some fun activities or demos.

Rather than measuring only a full and partial cell, Ned had the students measure a whole cell, then stood in front of part of it (partially shaded, fully shaded, etc.), and had them measure again. That way, they could see the direct correlation between current and less sunlight, but voltage staying the same always. We had them measure the pieces after that as well. The discussion on how solar cells work went pretty well in terms of understanding, I think (Ned, please correct me if I'm wrong!), although I'm not sure how interesting it was? We didn't really get a chance to recap and check everyone's understanding, since we were already over time. I'll start the next lesson by checking how everyone understood the last lesson, and getting some brief feedback on that.

Making a brief mention of diodes at this point made sense, and will hopefully come in handy later when we're talking about circuits. I had a couple more things to include if we ran out of time, but we didn't even get to the CCB wrapup, so will have to include that next time or something. I think the lecture on how solar cells work may have been a bit long to keep interest entirely there, and having the CCB portion at the end, or at least something else fun and more interactive, would definitely have ended the class on a better note.

More updates as classes progress!

Maddie