Temperature Tells All! Model House Testing for Clean vs. Warm Air
Example typical homes, building materials and stoves in an Andean community in rural Peru.
Through this activity experimentation, students see the challenging trade-off between airtight houses that better hold in heat (resulting in warm, smoky houses) and well-ventilated houses that cool off faster (resulting in chilly houses with good indoor air quality). To begin, students are introduced to the health risks caused by cooking and heating with inefficient cook stoves inside homes, a common practice in rural developing communities. Students simulate the cook stove scenario and use the engineering design process steps, including iterative trials, to increase warmth inside a building while reducing air quality issues. A student worksheet guides students through data collection, calculations, graphing and analysis of their findings—including an introduction to the concept of slope. An introductory slide presentation is also provided.
Air quality and its public health impact is a concern for environmental engineers. Some environmental engineers work with developing communities to design appropriate and sustainable technologies using local materials to improve people's quality of life.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Explain the health risks of heating and cooking indoors with inefficient cook stoves and how engineers can help improve indoor air quality in developing communities.
- Based on the results from trial iterations, make decisions that improve a design.
- Create an x- and y- line graph showing the relationship between two variables.
- Identify maximum and minimum values on a line graph.
- Identify maximum and minimum rates of change based on the steepness of the line on the line graph (introduction to slope).