Energy and People

Energy is a term used in conversations about food, electricity generation and spirituality. All three have a different use for the word, but ultimately the description is about harnessing energy from a storage unit. As long as energy can be harnessed, there is no preference over the source.

The book Cheap and Clean: How Americans think about Energy in the Age of Climate Change emphasizes that as long as needs are met, the source of energy isn't a priority. Infact, most Americans wish to steer away from oil and coal (Ansolabehere 2014, 8). People are dependent on energy, therefore their needs must be met but they are not attached to the source.

What People Want (in order of priority): (Ansolabehere 2014, 42).

• Low price Electricity
• Renewable Energy
• Fossil Fuel

Human Power

Another source of Energy, which drives our society towards modernization and industrialization is Human Power. By reviewing the book Human-powered vehicles, it was clear the reason for our never ending need for energy is the limited amounts we can put out as an individual.

List of Inventions:

• Rowing shells
• Hydrofoils
• Bicycles
• Human-powered aircraft

Reason for inventions:

• Recreation
• Travel
• Exercise

Limitation of the Human Engine: Consistent Energy

Energy expenditure in Humans and Nonhuman Primates

The energy expenditure in humans and nonhumans is limited to not more than 7 times their resting metabolic rate (Hammond, 1997).

Effective Comprehension Instruction

"Teaching kids to comprehend means we show them how to construct meaning when they learn". Comprehension instruction is best achieved when instructors:

• Plan instruction that's responsive to individual needs of students
• Model through action- own use of comprehension strategies
• Teach with end in mind
• Provide with opportunities for guided and independent practice
• Provide opportunities for kids to discuss topic amongst themselves

Gradual Release of Responsibility Framework - Includes 5 components of comprehension instruction:

1. Teacher modeling:

• Teacher explains strategy
• Teacher models how to effectively use strategy and understand text/topic
• Teacher thinks aloud when teaching to show strategy use

1. Guided Practice:

• Teacher guides large group discussions
• Teacher and students practice strategy together,
• Teacher supports their thinking and attempts and provides feedback and makes sure everyone is understanding

1. Collaborative practice:

• Students share their thinking in small group discussions and during paired thinking
• Teacher moves from group to group assessing and responding to student needs

1. Independent Practice

• After working with teacher and others, students practice strategy on their own
• Teacher provides regular feedback for student

1. Application of strategy in Authentic Reading situations

• Students apply strategy in authentic reading situations and different genres, settings, contexts and disciplines

Diverse Teaching Strategies for diverse learners

Diverse student learners include students from racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse families and communities of lower socioeconomic status. The Schools of the 21st Century

• models puts together all of the factors that contribute to the positive academic, emotional, and social development of young children school-based programs, strong links between early childhood and schools, strong parental support and involvement, universal access, a focus on children's physical, social, emotional, and intellectual development, strong staff training and development; and a commitment to serving working families.
• program is flexible enough to be successful in any unique community setting

Effective instruction acknowledges students' gender differences, reaffirms their cultural, ethnic, and linguistic heritages, other effective approaches build on students' backgrounds to further their abilities. Ways in which we teach young people have a strong influence on their linguistic, social, cognitive, and general educational development. "12 key elements for effective teaching for ethnic and language-minority students

1. Teachers have a clear sense of their own ethnic and cultural identities.
2. Teachers communicate high expectations for the success of all students and a belief that all students can succeed.
3. Teachers are personally committed to achieving equity for all students and believe that they are capable of making a difference in their students' learning.
4. Teachers have developed a bond with their students and cease seeing their students as "the other."
5. Schools provide an academically challenging curriculum that includes attention to the development of higher-level cognitive skills.
6. Instruction focuses on students' creation of meaning about content in an interactive and collaborative learning environment.
7. Teachers help students see learning tasks as meaningful.
8. Curricula includes the contributions and perspectives of the different ethnocultural groups that compose the society.
9. Teachers provide a "scaffolding" that links the academically challenging curriculum to the cultural resources that students bring to school.

10. Teachers explicitly teach students the culture of the school and seek to maintain students' sense of ethnocultural pride and identity. 11. Community members and parents or guardians are encouraged to become involved in students' education and are given a significant voice in making important school decisions related to programs (such as resources and staffing) 12. Teachers are involved in political struggles outside the classroom that are aimed at achieving a more just and humane society."

Different Learning Styles

3 main types:

1. Auditory

• learn best by hearing and listening to things.
• the ones you may have to speak to for talking when they should not be

1. Visual

• learn best by looking at or seeing things. Usually the ones that are doodling or drawing while the teacher is talking.

1. Kinesthetic

• learn best by physically doing something
• hardest learning style to incorporate into a lesson because resourcing often takes more time, but many students prefer this style of learning
• Students are usually fidgeting during lessons— they may find it difficult to sit still.

Identifying learning Styles

• Younger students won't know what their preferred learning style is
• Line up of quizzes on internet to help students discover preferred learning style
• Address needs of all three types of learners in a lesson as well as when planning activities

Accommodating Visual Learners:

• Use PowerPoint's & add key words and ideas onto slides, lots of special effects
• Use colour to highlight key points
• Hand-out's with key information, when note-taking, encourage students to write key words or ideas in different colors
• Use pictures, diagrams, graphs and charts to show statistics, use posters, film or television clips to illustrate points wherever possible

Accommodating Auditory Learners:

• Get auditory learners to talk to you, tell them something, and then ask them to repeat back what you just said
• Encourage high ability learners to put new ideas into their own words
• Encourage students to talk about their ideas and their learning as much as possible in the lesson
• Discuss a key issue where there is no wrong or right answer- Put students into pairs to discuss issue, they must report back on their partner's opinion

Accommodating Kinesthetic Learners:

• Anything that you can give them which gets them up and out of their chairs is great
• Making 3D models of something. Have them design something and let them do it themselves
• Venn diagrams are another way to sort objects or ideas
• Using mini-whiteboards gives students something practical to do in short time bursts
• Designing posters for particular topics can work well too

Maintenance

Since the box is constructed individually, the maintenance can be done by deconstruction of the Box.

Instructions

If the Box stops working:

• Simply open up the cardboard box
• Check wires to ensure there are no breaks/disconnects
• Check the gear placement on the motor
• Find out which part is fault and replace it

Discussion

The box was a fun project to create with the Student of Union Charter School. As a team we were unaware of what the kids were looking forward to or what they would already know. To our surprise, the kids were already educated on most of the topics in energy. This made our experience or working with the kids more relaxed and collaborative, rather than instructional.

Lessons learned

It was clear that the kids had a lot of ideas about the box but we have went in with an image of the final product. We would start off our next project by brainstorming with the kids to come up with the perfect product. We also needed more time with the kids, we started off with one day a week, but felt that we may have needed two.

Next steps

Our next step is to send a video of our project to the school and allow for the kids to make the box themselves.

Troubleshooting

If the box does not work, Contact: rs391@humboldt.edu or im689@humboldt.edu