Passive Solar Science Building
During this unit, we had a end goal of designing a new science building for our future stem class. We went through many steps to get there. First, we learned about Earth's Layers. Then we learned about orbits and made a model about our solar system and how the planets orbit the Sun. We also looked at atomic structure and subatomic particles. Next, we learned about solar angles and how they change throughout the day and year. This helped us to work on our day-lighting design model. Then, as a class, we made a justification document about the production of energy and reducing energy use. Finally, we put all of that information together into our final science building design.
1. The Earth's Layers
When we learned about the Earth's layers, we covered many topics.
The first one was the distances of the different layers. For instance, from the center to the surface is about 4,000 miles. Then, we learned about Earthquakes and how the layers affect them. We also learned about the richter scale and seismographs. |
2. Orbits
When learning about how planets orbit, we first started off with universal gravitation. This included tangential velocity, and why satellites stay in orbit and don't fall towards whatever they are orbiting.
We then made models of the solar system and corrected it about 4 times, as you can see to the right. Our final version is shown in maroon, and has a small caption under each planet. Next, as you can see below, we came up with a phenomena and made a poster to prove it. Our phenomena required us to make an equation. After "solving" our phenomena, we presented it to the class. |
3. Atomic Structure
When learning about atoms, their structure, and subatomic particles, we took many notes so those pictures are included below. We went through this section of the unit quite quickly, so it mostly consisted of notes. We used this to lead us into molecules and heat, so that we could move on to natural lighting and heating.
4. Day-lighting Design Model
First, before starting our model we learned about solar angles and how they would affect our models. The labs that we did on that are shown below.
After learning about light, we applied that knowledge to our next task. Our next task was to make a house where its only lighting was from the sun. We used multiple day lighting techniques, such as light tubes, skylights, and light shelves. This project was worked on as a group, and it took us about a week and a half.
The house that we were to model had to be exactly 1000 square feet, but we could design it however we wanted. My group and I decided to design it like any average one-story house, and we did this to see how daylighting techniques would work with houses similar to our own. We did not use any up-scale materials to make this model, solely because we were focused on the lighting, and not necessarily the quality of the structure. The materials that we used included cardboard, PVC pipes, hot glue, foil, and white paper to brighten the interior. |
5. Justification Document
As a class, we made a justification document on the types of energy usage and how to conserve energy. Each group had a couple of sections in the document, and we worked together as a class to complete it. Our sections were geothermal energy and fossil fuels. Our class document is shown to the right.
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6. New Science Building
Last but not least, we combined all of our previous knowledge from this unit together. Our school is due for a new science building, and architects are working on it right now. Our task was to design a new science building to pitch to the architects. Our design had guidelines, and we needed certain things in each classroom. We also needed to include day-lighting techniques. My group and I decided to make a building that was shaped like a dodecagon (a 12-sided polygon) that included a huge day-lighted common area. Pictures of our building model are shown to the right and below.
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Shown below is the presentation that my group and I made. We each contributed a different piece to this presentation. The next step to this project was to pitch our ideas to the architects, and we will pitch our ideas through this presentation. We included pictures of our blueprints, models, and materials into this presentation.
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Reflection:
For me, this project was very enjoyable and a great learning experience. I really like doing projects related to architecture, and this project was all about that. It was also incredible to know that the project that I was working towards was a real-life building, one that will actually be considered for our future school campus.
My group and I worked fairly well together, although the workload wasn't always shared equally. There are always groups like that, so it is important to recognize them and learn how to work through it and take the responsibilities. I think that I definitely could have helped this issue by telling my group members what to do, but I do not want to come across as controlling. I think the main thing that I could improve on for the next group would be collaboration. For example, I would make sure that each day, every group member knows what to do so that there would not be any students with nothing to do.
I really enjoyed this project, and I felt that it matched what I find interest in. Hopefully, future projects will allow me to explore my interests as well.
After presenting and pitching our new science building, there are many things to reflect upon. We had to complete our presentation in under 5 minutes, which is a difficult task to complete given that we had spent such a long amount of time working on this project. Our group managed to do it though, and we did this by repeatedly practicing what we were going to say until we had perfect timing. The presentation was not flawless, though. We were missing a group member due to illness and had to fill his spot in the presentation. To do so, we split the lines among the other group members. The architects were also given rubrics, and gave us critiques after presenting. The main critique that we got was that some of the presentation was hard to see due to lighting issues, which is an easy fix. Overall, I'd call this project a success.
My group and I worked fairly well together, although the workload wasn't always shared equally. There are always groups like that, so it is important to recognize them and learn how to work through it and take the responsibilities. I think that I definitely could have helped this issue by telling my group members what to do, but I do not want to come across as controlling. I think the main thing that I could improve on for the next group would be collaboration. For example, I would make sure that each day, every group member knows what to do so that there would not be any students with nothing to do.
I really enjoyed this project, and I felt that it matched what I find interest in. Hopefully, future projects will allow me to explore my interests as well.
After presenting and pitching our new science building, there are many things to reflect upon. We had to complete our presentation in under 5 minutes, which is a difficult task to complete given that we had spent such a long amount of time working on this project. Our group managed to do it though, and we did this by repeatedly practicing what we were going to say until we had perfect timing. The presentation was not flawless, though. We were missing a group member due to illness and had to fill his spot in the presentation. To do so, we split the lines among the other group members. The architects were also given rubrics, and gave us critiques after presenting. The main critique that we got was that some of the presentation was hard to see due to lighting issues, which is an easy fix. Overall, I'd call this project a success.