Diary Entry - February

Students have continued to build their homes using wood and acrylic and have been using various woodworking techniques and tools to create their model. They have been checking that the scaling of their windows, doors is accurate and checking the angle of their roofs are suitable for capturing the maximum amount of sunlight if they have chosen to use solar panels.

Some students have chosen to include glass domes within their roofing system to capture as much natural light as possible. They have been considering how these can be made from specialised glass. In their maths lessons they have closely studied the shape of other glass domes such as the Eden Project. They have found that various shapes tessellate to form these domes. They have recreated their own domes using plastic by cutting out shapes, such as hexagons, and joining them together to create a model dome. They have learned that different types of glass let in different amounts of light and can even control the temperature of a room keeping heat out in the summer reducing heat loss in winter.

A compost survey has been completed. Students handed out questionnaires to other students, staff, families and friends. They wanted to find out what people knew about composting and whether people were aware of the huge array of materials that are compostable. They are now setting up 3 compost bins at school and trialling different combinations of materials in order to see which generates the most heat. They will be taking temperature measurements over forthcoming weeks to reach their conclusions. Students are devising ways of harvesting the heat from these composters in order to use it to heat a greenhouse overwinter, an outbuilding such as a garage, office, or animal home. They have looked at the designs of ground source heat pumps and are coming up with ways of recreating a version that can be fed off compost bins. They intend to build a model version for their eco-homes.

The highlight of this month has been a day of workshops at Haywood led by Keele University. Students had to consider various questions relating to energy and sustainability. Questions included, ‘Is nuclear power climate friendly?’, ‘Should every house have solar panels and wind turbines?’ and ‘Windpower…..Is it all good news?’ There was discussion and research taking place. This culminated with students preparing presentations that were presented to the rest of the group. Some interesting debates took place. The students realised that there are pros and cons to all issues linked to energy and sustainability and the teachers felt that they have become much less biased in their views as a result of these workshops.

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