How to Explain Wind Turbines to Children

From cooking meals, washing dishes, playing video games, to having showers, and reading books—everything we do daily needs energy! We can get that energy from two types of sources: renewable (wind and water) and non-renewable (fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas).

One of the renewable sources of energy is wind—a natural, never-ending resource that we can find all over the planet. But how is wind produced? How can something invisible, that we cannot capture with our hands, produce energy?

This story about the wind begins with its most important hero: the sun! The sun heats up the surface of our planet and, as a result, the air has different temperatures at different spots. Hot air tends to rise and cold air tends to sink down. This movement of uneven air produces wind!

When it’s windy, special devices called wind turbines harvest and transform the wind into electricity that reaches our homes and helps us use different appliances, like TV, laptops, lights, etc. The whole process happens thanks to the rotation of the wind turbines’ blades. Wind turbines are the grandchildren of the windmills that people used centuries ago! The best part about these turbines is that the energy from the wind reduces pollution and helps us care for the environment.

To be able to capture the most wind energy possible, wind turbines need to be located at windy places. The wind blows faster over the ocean than over the land because there’s not as much friction or as many obstacles over the water. Also, the ocean heats up much more slowly and is relatively cooler than the shore, which makes it a high-pressure zone.

That’s why, in countries with vast seashores surrounded by oceans—like Norway, the UK, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Portugal and others—you can see many wind turbines located in and around the water nearby!

Has your child ever seen wind turbines? You can invite them to play with the coloring pages we prepared which will help them to get to know these incredible machines so the next time they see one, they’ll be able to recognize it!