Questions for Electricity: Cutting the cords
SCIENCE
Before reading:
1. Create a tally of all the electronic devices you use on a daily or weekly basis that need plugging in to recharge.
2. Wind, water and steam are all used to spin turbines and produce electricity. Research the basic components of a turbine.
During reading:
1. Provide two examples of wireless recharging technologies now in use.
2. Describe why worrying and the waiting can accompany owning an electric vehicle.
3. What is energy harvesting?
4. Why are electricity and magnetism called two faces of the same coin?
5. Define induction.
6. What holds back the wider adoption of the wireless transfer of energy?
7. Explain the meaning of “resonant frequency.”
8. How can an opera singer shatter a glass?
9. In energy harvesting, explain the sources of the forms of energy that may be converted into electricity.
10. What would it mean for broadcast signals to do “double duty?”
After reading:
1. Why would it important to develop wireless versions of medical devices that can be implanted in the body?
2. Explain some of the reasons why wireless electricity and energy harvesting could cut waste and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
SOCIAL STUDIES
1. Any growth in the use of wireless electricity and energy harvesting will require adaptations to the infrastructure in our homes, neighborhoods and towns. Describe some of those physical changes. What sorts of changes might be more or less popular with you, your neighbors and others in the area where you live?