How To Make Tea In An Extraordinary
Way.
We explored how hard it is to generate the electricity
needed to light one, two and three car headlights using
a dynamo attached to a bicycle. Then we made a performance
in which a team of cyclists boil a kettle in order to
make a cup of tea. We carefully measured the water’s
changing temperature over time so it was a proper scientific
experiment. We made a video of our experiment with the
film maker Joseph Potts, click
here to view this. Members of our team shot the
film with four cameras and we edited it together with
Joseph in pairs.
In science we measured the water we had boiled and used
the Specific Heat Capacity of water to calculate how
much energy we had added to the water in raising its
temperature to 100ºC. We calculated the energy the kettle
should have consumed over the time the bicycle was pedalled.
This suggested the kettle was inefficient. We discussed
all the energy transformations that took place within
our experiment and identified where energy was lost
in the process beyond having an inefficient kettle.
We recognised that cost can be things other than money,
it cost us lots of time and discomfort to boil our pedal
power kettle.
Commentary for teachers
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