Photovoltaic cells convert sunlight directly into electricity, while other solar technologies use sunlight to heat water for direct use or to drive electric turbines. These technologies connect in many ways to scientific discoveries and still more technologies. For instance, the development of ocean-going ships made the study of weather more important. At a weather station in Scotland, that a strange, glowing phenomenon encouraged a student to create a cloud machine in a laboratory. The photos he took were clues to the structure of atoms.
Scientific progress is made by asking meaningful questions and conducting careful investigations.
As a basis for understanding this concept, and to address the content from the other three strands, students should develop their own questions and perform investigations. Questions reflect a mental organization of a subject. Understanding often comes of classifying and then determining the most powerful questions for placing something new into that classification. This is an important part of understanding both science technology. Since applying this with scientific experiments requires delayed gratification, an introduction to the method of classification of objects and formulation can be made with technology.