You know that electricity is used in many different ways in our lives. Electric power plants send electricity to homes, schools, and factories. These plants are expensive to run and frequently cause pollution. We run other devices with batteries or electric cells. As you know these eventually run out of power and we throw them away...more garbage and more expense. Many people have proposed using the energy from the sun to run electrical devices. It might be a never-ending source of electricity.

A nifty device developed to capture the energy from the sun is a solar cell. In fact, a solar cell can convert the energy from the sun into very small amounts of electrical energy. But will it work well under all weather and climate conditions? By using a solar cell and a multimeter you can investigate whether the changing conditions of the atmosphere over a given period of time affect the power of a solar cell.

Have you ever experienced a day when it starts out sunny, is overcast for most of the afternoon, and then ends with a clear sky? Do you remember days when it started out warm and then turned cold? These are known as weather conditions. "Weather" refers to the atmospheric conditions in a specific place at a specific time. As weather conditions change, does the amount of solar rays reaching the earth change?

A solar cell is usually made of silicon. When the energy of the sun hits the surface of the solar cell it creates an energy flow from the solar cell to power devices like solar calculators. In this activity you will use a multimeter to measure the amount of energy from the sun captured by the solar cell.

Discuss with your group members how you would set up an investigation to find out if the weather conditions affect the output of a solar cell. Think carefully about what you want to measure, how often you want to take the measurement, and how you will record your data. Be prepared to present and explain your plan to the class and answer questions.