Solar Water Heater
For part one of our Outdoor Classroom was designing and building a solar water heater. We spent the first few days of this project learning about heat transfers and atoms. Then we learnt about the suns angled rays and how they are vary in the different seasons. Then we started designing our solar water heater. We worked on it for about 4 days and figured out what angles we needed to use for the rays to successfully reflect light onto the metal pipes in our heater. It worked very well with a heat gain of over 4,000 calories.
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Client Needs Survey |
In order to understand what we must build we must understand what people actually want. Client needs survey was used to identify what the people want.
Site Selection
The people requested a shady and quiet area with access to wifi. So we choose a place shaded by buildings that still gets wifi,
Materials Testing Lab |
In this lab we tested how different materials react to heat to know what to use for an outdoor classroom. This helps us understand what would be good to make a bench or table out of, to keep it warm or cool.
Presentation
Here is what our classroom may have looked like.
Wind Turbine Lab
Concepts
Atoms and Molecules
Atoms are the basic structure of all matter. There are three parts to an atom, protons, neutrons, and electrons. Protons are positively charged, neutrons have no charge, and electrons are negatively charged. Protons and neutrons are found in the nucleus of an atom, while electrons are found in electron shell surrounding the nucleus. When two or more atoms are linked together, they become a molecule. Molecules make up the elements and are another, bigger, building block of all matter. Molecules make up the elements and are another, bigger, building block of all matter, which makes up the more generic elements such and oxygen, carbon dioxide, and sugar.
Heat Transfers
Heat is transferred in various ways including radiation, conduction, convection, insulation. Specific heat is the amount of heat an object can hold.
Laws of Thermodynamics
Zeroth law of Thermodynamics: The first of the thermodynamic laws, this law states that if two systems are exchanging heat between each other, say systems A and B, and system B is also sharing heat with C, then system A is sharing heat with system C. A good way to think about this is what happens if you stick a metal pipe in the snow. You're hand will exchange heat with the snow, even though you aren't exactly touching it.
First law of Thermodynamics: The second of the thermodynamic laws, this law talks about how energy can never be destroyed it only changes form. This means that energy is only ever transferred from object to object, never created or destroyed.
Second law of Thermodynamics: The third of the thermodynamic laws, this laws states that over time, an isolated system will grow gradually more disordered. This law can be shown in a house, where when everyone is done with any object, they will simply drop it wherever they are. Over time, the house will become increasingly more disordered, until you reach the point where there is a very high chance that you will be able to find whatever you wanted wherever you are in the house, as long as the house began with enough of what you wanted.
Third law of Thermodynamics: The fourth of the thermodynamic laws, this law talks about how when a system approaches 0K, it's entropy gradually goes down.
First law of Thermodynamics: The second of the thermodynamic laws, this law talks about how energy can never be destroyed it only changes form. This means that energy is only ever transferred from object to object, never created or destroyed.
Second law of Thermodynamics: The third of the thermodynamic laws, this laws states that over time, an isolated system will grow gradually more disordered. This law can be shown in a house, where when everyone is done with any object, they will simply drop it wherever they are. Over time, the house will become increasingly more disordered, until you reach the point where there is a very high chance that you will be able to find whatever you wanted wherever you are in the house, as long as the house began with enough of what you wanted.
Third law of Thermodynamics: The fourth of the thermodynamic laws, this law talks about how when a system approaches 0K, it's entropy gradually goes down.
Reflection
I was concerned when I first entered this group because of the size of this project. We only had three people in our group.