Science 101: How do windmills generate power?

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This is a timely question given that you can now buy your own windmill (or more correctly, wind turbine) for residential use. More on that later. Using windmills to generate electricity makes sense once you understand how we generate electricity. So let’s figure that out after a brief history of windmills.

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Type Journal ArticlePub Date 7/1/2009Stock # sc09_046_09_55Volume 046Issue 09

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Michelle (Finksburg, MD)

Michelle

This author does a great job at explaining wind turbines and how they are able to produce electricity. There are great diagrams related in the article, and I like the experiment that the au... See More

Adah (San Antonio, TX)

How Wind Turbines Produce Electricity

Like other articles from this author, he explains the basic concepts of a wind turbine and how it is used to generate electricity. Along with great diagrams, there is a simple experiment th... See More

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Tina Harris (Fairmount, IN)

Basic introduction to turbines

This article does a great job of explaining how turbines produce electricity and gives great activities that can be done with students to help them understand as well. What it does not do is... See More

Sandy Gady (Renton, WA)

Wind Turbine Pros and Cons

Robertson gives an excellent background of windmills aka wind turbines. I used this article with my middle school students to help them understand the pros and cons of utilizing wind turbines.

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