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Harness the Wind 

 

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Curriculum Level: K-5

By Laurie Newhouse from Dillard Drive Magnet Elementary

OVERVIEW OF LESSON:  As first grade students learn about force and motion in science, they will read about the true story of a boy named William and how he created a windmill to help save his family during a time of drought and famine. The students will demonstrate how force and motion are used as they create a windmill of their own. Students will learn about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), discuss the characteristics of a goalkeeper (perseverance, bravery, curiosity), and what they can do as children to become an effective goalkeeper.

SUGGESTED GRADE LEVEL: First Grade

SUBJECTS: Science and ELA

CORRESPONDING NATIONAL AND/OR STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA STANDARDS:

Science:

1.P.1: Understand how forces (pushes and pulls) affect the motion of an object.

1.P.1.1: Explain the importance of a push or pull to changing the motion of an object.

1.P.1.2: Explain how some forces (pushes and pulls) can be used to make things move without touching them, such as magnets.
1.P.1.3: Predict the effect of a given force on the motion of an object, including balanced forces.

ELA:

SL.1.1: Students will participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 1 topics and texts with peers and adults in larger groups.

SL.1.2: Students will ask and answer questions about key details in a text read aloud and information presented through other media.

Related ELA Standards:

RL.1.1: Ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

RL 1.7: Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events.

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS: 

  • What force was used to make the windmill move?
  • What is affordable and clean energy?
  • What is a goalkeeper?
  • What skills does a goalkeeper possess?

LESSON OBJECTIVES: 

  1. Students will be able to explain how force and motion make a windmill move.
  2. Students will be able to give an example of clean energy and how it works.
  3. Students will describe how the main character in The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind helped his community with the global goals: zero hunger (SDG 2), affordable and clean energy (SDG 7), and climate action (SDG 13).
  4. Students will connect how the characteristics of a Goalkeeper help people work toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a local community and as a global community united by a common purpose.
  5. Students will target knowledge they already have, skills they are learning, and actions they can take to contribute to the SDGs.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION FOR THE EDUCATOR or RESOURCES TO EXPLORE FURTHER: 

  • Listen to the story of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind available here as a Read Aloud.
  • Watch the film/movie of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind on Netflix to help build background knowledge about William’s story.
  • The World’s Largest Lesson is a website that contains helpful lessons for teaching the SDGs.
  • Creating a Moving Windmill Project to learn more about William Kamkwamba and windmills.

SPECIFIC STUDENT STRATEGIES & ACTIVITIES: 

Educators should use the Harness the Wind slide deck throughout the lesson.

Day 1 

Show the students the Day 1 slide–What are our basic needs? Ask students what they see, think, and wonder about this slide.

Ask children: What do they need to live? Appropriate responses could be food, water, sleep, warmth, shelter, oxygen, and/or love. Discuss the meaning of these words and explore examples that fit into these categories. For example, their home, a tent, and their clothes all provide different forms of shelter whereas love can come from family, friends, hugs and being looked after. Some suggestions might not fall into the needs category, e.g. cars, books or sweets. Explain that these are great examples of things that are nice to have – something you might want but not need.

Show children the Global Goals poster. The Global Goals are a plan to protect the basic needs of people and animals. People all over the world are working together to protect the planet and make sure that everyone has what they need to be safe, healthy and happy.

Find icons that represent the ideas they came up with. For example, can you find a building, a tree that gives oxygen and a bowl of food? Display the poster somewhere that children can revisit and see close up, in order to examine the different symbols in their own time.

This week we will be reading a story about a boy named William. The basic needs of his family were not being met due to drought and famine (explain famine). William’s family did not have enough money to send him to school so William had to drop out of school. William decided to take action to help meet the needs of his family. The students will listen to the story of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.

The teacher will lead a discussion after the students hear the story using these questions:

  1. Who is the main character?
  2. Where is the setting?
  3. What challenges does William and his family face?
  4. Why does he create the windmill?
  5. How does the windmill help save his family?
  6. What does the windmill have to do with our study of force and motion in science?

Day 2
Watch the video Blowing in the Wind on the slide deck.

Ask children if they can think of something good that they’d like to do today. This should be something positive like tidy their bedroom, be nice to a sibling, and brush their teeth before bedtime. What about when they are older? What job would they like to do when they are grown up? What kind of a person would they like to be? What kind of things would they like to do? Explain that these are all examples of goals — things we want to achieve in the future. Show the children the Global Goals poster. These are goals for everyone on earth that the whole world is working together on. We are aiming to achieve them by the year 2030.

Explain that people are working together to try to achieve the Global Goals. Review that these people could be called Goalkeepers because they are standing up and taking action for the SDGs. They are ordinary people that care about making their schools, homes, communities and countries better for everyone to live in now and they care about protecting them for the future. Explain that is important as a Goalkeeper decides to stand up and act.

Tell your students that William is a Goalkeeper!

What goals does William achieve?

What qualities (character traits) help William meet his goals? (perseverance, curiosity, creativity, bravery)

Tell the students that they are Goalkeepers!

There are things we can all do to achieve the Goals. Discuss what the world could be like in the future if people did not work on the goals together. Point out a few of the Goals and discuss the meaning. Can you give any examples of how you are already helping to meet these Goals? Can you think of any other ways you could address them? Students can choose their own global goal.

Day 3 

Watch The Field Trip to the Wind Farm as a Brain Warm Up

Ask the students how this video of the wind farm compares to The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind? What is clean energy? Discuss why it is important to have affordable and clean energy.

The class watches the video Understand Goal 7: Affordable Clean Energy together.

Relate SDG 7 and the windmill to our science unit and our study of Force and Motion. How does William use science to create the windmill? What forces are used to make the windmill move? What role does force and motion play in William’s windmill? The teacher explains that they will each create their own windmill just as William did! It is called a pinwheel. The teacher makes a windmill in front of the class and then each child creates their “mini windmill”. Print pinwheel template (available here) ON CARDSTOCK.

Watch the following videos for options for creating the windmill. Important, materials should be gathered before this lesson.
Video 1, Build a Wind Turbine, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmM5kO2PjCo

Video 2, How to make working model of a wind turbine from cardboard, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEhW6xFv49k

Video 3, How to Make a Pinwheel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf9kBwPfCTI

Day 4

Watch Moving Windmills: The William Kamkwamba Story as a Brain Warm Up

Watch the video, Malala Introducing the World’s Largest Lesson, Animation: Part I and A Call to Climate Learning from the World’s Largest Lesson.

What is a ‘to-do list’? Use a piece of paper to start a ‘to-do list’ for the day, starting with regular tasks. Ask children if they can think of anything to add. Then show the Global Goals poster. This is a ‘to do list’ for the world, agreed by leaders from 193 countries all over the world. Explain that people are working together to try to achieve this ‘to-do list’. Review that these people could be called Goalkeepers because they are standing up and taking action for the SDGs. They are ordinary people that care about making their schools, homes, communities and countries better for everyone to live in now and they care about protecting the future. Explain that everyone has different skills and knowledge to achieve the Goals. Ask students the following questions to discuss as a class: What actions can you start taking for the Goals today? What do you want to do for the Goals as a class? Try making your own Global Goals ‘to-do list’. You can choose one or more global goals to focus on.  Teachers can also create a Global Goals chain and have it go around your classroom.

ASSESSMENTS: 

The students will use pinwheels to explain how force and motion is used.

LEARNING EXTENSIONS:
Using the pinwheels the students made, the students can teach kindergarten students how pinwheels work.

Students can visit a wind tunnel farm.

Students can have a video chat with William Kamkwamba

MATERIALS:
Harness the Wind slide deck

SDG/Global Goals poster available here

supplies to make pinwheels

REFERENCES:

Antique Pencil. (2018, Sept 23). How to make working model of a wind turbine from cardboard. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEhW6xFv49k&t=103s 

Jahnke, A. (2020, Nov 25). The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind Read Aloud. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfmM6Hqj9yc&t=1s

Kamkwamba, W. (2008, Feb 14). Moving Windmills: The William Kamkwamba Story [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arD374MFk4w&t=1s

Kamkwamba, W. (2015). The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. Puffin Books.

Lalonde, S. (n.d.). Create a Moving Windmill Project. STEM Activities for Kids. https://stemactivitiesforkids.com/2021/09/23/create-a-moving-windmill-project/

Participate, Inc. (2019) Understand Goal 7: Affordable Clean Energy [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlWfQoycRPE

Read 180 Videos. (2019, Feb 20). Blowing in the Wind. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoIGMdUjUUM&t=12s

Super Simple Play with Caitie! (2019, July 8). Visit A Giant Wind Turbine on a Wind Farm! [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5_cZ3IRUkU&t=1s

Technovation. (2020, April 16). Build a Wind Turbine. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmM5kO2PjCo

The Global Goals. (2017) World’s Largest Lesson: Emma Watson Introduction: Global Goals [Video] YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx0AVjtdq_Q&t=95s

The Kidsplainer. (2021, Apr 25). How to Make a Pinwheel. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf9kBwPfCTI

World’s Largest Lesson. (n.d.). Malala Introducing the World’s Largest Lesson, Animation: Part I. [Video]. https://worldslargestlesson.globalgoals.org/resource/malala-introducing-the-the-worlds-largest-lesson/

World View, a public service program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, equips K-12 and community college educators with global knowledge, best practices and resources to prepare students to engage in our interconnected and diverse world.

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