Hydropower Efficiency, Grade 4: Stem Road Map for Elementary School

What if you could challenge your fourth graders to create a minimally invasive, highly efficient dam? With this volume in the STEM Road Map Curriculum Series, you can! Hydropower Efficiency outlines a journey that will steer your students toward authentic problem solving while grounding them in integrated STEM disciplines. Like the other volumes in the series, this book is designed to meet the growing need to infuse real-world learning into K-12 classrooms.

This interdisciplinary, four-lesson module uses project- and problem-based learning to help students create a highly efficient dam that has a minimal impact on the environment. Students will explore the use of natural resources to provide energy needs, specifically hydropower, while exploring the workings of watermills, wind turbines, and generators to help build an understanding of the effects of dams. In creating their dam, they will learn about the various types of alternative hydropower sources, including wave and tidal power, and track the progress of electrification in the U.S. on a timeline; alongside researching the positive and negative consequences of hydropower.

To support this goal, students will do the following:

• Use the engineering design process (EDP) to create a design for a dam, wind turbine, and water wheel
• Compare and contrast renewable power sources
• Evaluate power sources for efficiency
• Identify positive and negative consequences of human modifications of the environment
• Identify and describe how several sources of renewable energy are used across the U.S.
• Use mapping skills to determine where natural resources are being accessed for energy usage
• Effectively utilize shapes, materials, and measurements to create a model of a hydropower system

The STEM Road Map Curriculum Series is anchored in the Next Generation Science Standards, the Common Core State Standards, and the Framework for 21st Century Learning. In-depth and flexible, Hydropower Efficiency can be used as a whole unit or in part to meet the needs of districts, schools, and teachers who are charting a course toward an integrated STEM approach.

Carla C. Johnson is a Professor of Science Education and Office of Research and Innovation Faculty Research Fellow at North Carolina State University, North Carolina, USA.

Janet B. Walton is a Senior Research Scholar at North Carolina State’s College of Education in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA.

Erin E. Peters-Burton is the Donna R. and David E. Sterling Endowed Professor in Science Education at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, USA.