Home power survey

Lesson 3

#3 of 6 TITLE: HOME POWER SURVEY

SUMMARY:  Students learn how to use a plug in the wall power meter with the permission and supervision of an adult.  They take one home and conduct a power survey of various electrical appliance items through out their home such as washing machine, hair dryer, refrigerator, television.

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Instruction

  1. Write a grant/get funding to purchase some of these low cost plug in the wall style power meters.  They are about $15.00  each.  Click here for purchase information.   Ideally you will need one per student.  But you can assign them to groups of students to take home over a one week period.

  2. Go over the following with your students

    • Safety instructions provided in the owner's manual / instructions that come with the power meter

    • Parents will need to sign a release form stating that they will allow their child to perform electrical power measurements using the plug in the wall power meter with various electrical items around their house.  The school is not responsible for any damage to electrical items should anything happening when plugging / unplugging electrical items.

    • If necessary,  review material covered in the previous lesson #1

  3. Make up an observation home power survey sheet to hand out to your students.  Have them go home and measure power on at least 5 items in their home like refrigerator power,  toaster power, curling iron, hair dryer, television, computer, clothes washer.  The observation survey must have a place to record so called "Phantom power" with items that have an ON / OFF switch like a television.  The student is to record the power with the item turned on, and then turned off.