The SMILE Program @ OSU

We love seeing updates and pictures from the activities SMILE has created. Forest Grove High School was nice enough to share with us the progress of their poplar trees that they received during the 2014 Winter Teacher’s Workshop. Students in this club are taking measurements every week. See for yourself their growing trees:

We had a great time hosting our teacher’s workshop where we got to showcase fun, new activities to use in the club or classroom setting. For the middle school and high school students we shifted our focus toward engineering by showing the teachers an algal lab where the students can design what they think is an optimal place for algae to grow.  For the elementary school students the focus was on ecology and geology, which lead to some awesome hands on activities. All of these activities and those showcased in the workshop can be found below.  Thanks again for joining us this year and please feel free to share your comments on the activities we provided.

Elementary School:

• Lesson 1: All About Owls
• Lesson 2: Owl Pellets Part 1
• Lesson 3: Owl Pellets Part 2
• Lesson 4: Specialists vs. Generalists
• Lesson 5: I’m in Danger
• Habitat Activity
• Mice and Munchies
• Owl Pellet Bone Sheet

Middle School:

• BrainSTEM Game 
• Growing Algae for Fuel
• Saving White City’s Air Part I
• Saving White City’s Air Part II
• Fueling the Future: Exploring Sustainable Energy Use

High School:

• Great Lakes Bioenergy Farm Game
• Growing Algae for Fuel
• Saving White City’s Air Part III
• Saving White City’s Air Part IV
• Fueling the Future: Exploring Sustainable Energy Use

Last teacher workshop we previewed awesome middle school and high school bioenergy textbooks from Facing the Future.  These books are filled with activities including Sustainable Flight in the Pacific Northwest, which is a great real life example.  In this activity students will research different biofuels and decide which one is best suited to be mixed with jet fuel. They will then trace the production process and explore stakeholder’s positions with their classmates. Collectively classmates must come up with a new jet fuel policy that satisfies all of their stakeholders. This activity encourages healthy debate and will allow students to act as policy makers. We will be handing out the Facing the Future textbooks during the teacher workshop and we encourage you to check out their other amazing activities.

Using K’NEX, solar panels, and potatoes to harness energy, Emily Nicholson, with Pre-College Programs at Oregon State University, shared creative ways to Harness Energy in the Classroom during the 2014 Winter Teacher’s Workshop. You can find the activities that she shared along with many others by clicking HERE.

At the SMILE Teacher’s Workshop we showcased a plethora of great lessons plans, one of which was presented by Danica Hendrickson from Facing The Future.  She was gracious enough to share with us a PowerPoint for high school students that focuses on how we use energy everyday and where that energy comes from. Danica also recommended checking out these websites in conjunction with her lesson plan to see how much waste and energy recycling saves us.  These are great bioenergy ideas to share with your students.

Jon Roschke, a KidWind Pacific NW WindSenator from Oregon Renewables, shared a great presentation and his expertise on Wind Energy. Using prebuilt turbine towers, teachers explored the science of wind turbine blade design. Take a look at the presentation that Jon included in his workshop!

A great resource that Jon recommends is the KidWind Project website:  http://learn.kidwind.org/teach

This post contains Bioenergy activities for middle and high school that were presented at our Summer Teacher’s Workshop earlier in August. The lesson plans and any other resources for each activity are available on Google Drive. To access the lesson plans, click on the title of each activity. (Note: you do NOT have to have a Google account to access these files.) Please also note that the Fuel Comparison and Generations of Biofuels activities are the same, as both were presented to be used for both middle and high school levels. You are able to download and/or print the files for all of the activities directly from Google Drive, but you must download the file before you can make any personal edits. Please let us know if you have any questions or feedback!

Middle School Activities

The following activities are meant for use in SMILE clubs or classrooms at the middle school level. Each activity includes a comprehensive lesson plan with background information, materials, procedures, and challenge questions for your students. From these activities, we hope your students gain a better understanding of bioenergy and renewable resources, in particular renewable fuels or biofuels. Upon completion of these activities, middle school students should understand that bioenergy technology must be desirable, convenient, and accessible. They should be able to articulate the need for further technology development to challenge traditional energy standards. Through these activities students will also explore benefits to the environment and humans from bioenergy technology and understand that bioenergy pioneering efforts come from unexpected places. These activities will provide interesting, engaging opportunities for your students to learn and grow their understanding of bioenergy.

• Fuel Comparison: Students will be able to understand the positive and negative effects of using fossil fuels and biofuels, why fossil fuels are so prevalent, what are some alternatives to fossil fuels, and what can be done to push these alternatives into market. They will also learn where the energy they use comes from and what kind of energy sources Oregon uses to produce energy.
  

• Generations of Biofuels: Students will learn about the three generations of biofuels, how they are produced, their advantages and disadvantages, and the marketability of each fuel through this discussion-based activity.
  

• Polymer Activity: Students will learn about the use of polysaccharide sugars in the biofuel production process. They will take monomers found in glue and use borax to create a polymer.
  

• Roots and Shoots: Students will design an experiment to measure plant growth rates in the field to gather data to help determine the best crop choice for biofuel production and to explore carbon sequestration.
  

• Soil Investigations: Students will examine three different soil samples and determine the effects of air space on the soil.  

High School Activities

The following activities are meant for use in SMILE clubs at the high school level. Each activity includes a comprehensive lesson plan with background information, materials, procedures, and challenge questions for your students. From these activities, we hope your students gain a better understanding of bioenergy and renewable resources, in particular renewable fuels or biofuels. Upon completion of these activities, high school students should understand that bioenergy technology must be desirable, convenient, and accessible. They should be able to articulate the need for further technology development to challenge traditional energy standards. They will also explore benefits to the environment and humans from bioenergy technology and understand that bioenergy pioneering efforts come from unexpected places. These activities will provide interesting, engaging opportunities for your students to learn and grow their understanding of bioenergy.

• Fuel Comparison: Students will be able to understand the positive and negative effects of using fossil fuels and biofuels, why fossil fuels are so prevalent, what are some alternatives to fossil fuels, and what can be done to push these alternatives into market. They will also learn where the energy they use comes from and what kind of energy sources Oregon uses to produce energy.
  

• Generations of Biofuels: Students will learn about the three generations of biofuels, how they are produced, their advantages and disadvantages, and the marketability of each fuel through this discussion-based activity.
  

• Carbon Footprint Activity: Students will gain an understanding of the effect of their lifestyle choices on their carbon footprint. It will also help them recognize the lifestyle choices available to them that would lower their carbon footprint. Additionally, students will also be asked to critically think whether the available options for lowering their carbon footprint are actions that they are willing to take.
  

• Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs): There are two activities for MFCs — Bacteria Power: Students will explore the phenomenon of electrical production from bacteria by creating a mud bacteria fuel cell and testing the voltages at different time intervals. Battery vs. Fuel Cell – What’s the Difference?: Students will learn what a battery is, how different materials used in the battery influence the effectiveness of the battery, and how to make a battery out of household items. 
  

• Enzymes and Bioenergy: Students will explore enzymes and their use in creation of lignocellulosic biofuels. They will also examine economical and time considerations in new energy efficiency technologies.
  

• Growing Bioenergy: Students will get the opportunity to plant a poplar tree and discuss the uses and growth of poplar trees for bioenergy technologies.