In this activity (on pages 20-23 of PDF), learners build a model of a power plant using simple materials. The activity specifically refers to a nuclear reactor, but it is a good model for the way a coal, oil, natural gas, or geothermal power plant works. The main difference is whether the burning can of Sterno represents Uranium breaking down (nuclear), fossil fuels burning (coal, oil natural gas), or energy from the earth's crust (geothermal). Also, in a real plant the turbine wheel is attached to a generator, and that's how electricity would be generated. [Activity is publicly available through a web crawler capture on Archive.org.]