Battery Lab at Metro High School

Every semester, my PhD students and I spend the entire day at Metro High School teaching. There, we share a form of our research program that is consumable to a general audience by teaching students about energy storage and batteries. After this very brief discussion, the students are divided into teams and build their batteries from saltwater and aluminum foil in ice cube trays. These trays can power small LED lights, which also shows the energy efficiency of these lights compared to incandescent bulbs. At the end, the students combine all of their trays in series and use the energy to power up an old iPhone with a completely discharged battery.