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This week, we began our activity for environmental engineering.  First we had a lesson on alternative energy--we talked about solar, hydropower, geothermal energy, biomass, and wind energy.  Some of the vocabulary was difficult for our class, but they definitely got the general idea.  We tried to stress the difference between renewable and nonrenewable sources--those were our two main words.  We talked about natural sources of energy (like heat from the sun and the earth, as well as wind).

We came up with a new activity (we'll post it in the activity database soon...) involving the students becoming environmental engineers and designing a system to harness alternative energy on a fictional island (Somervilleland) that was quickly running out of fossil fuels.  After our lesson, we gave each team a design sheet so they could make an engineering plan.  They had to get those approved by either Tory or Jess (the "Mayors" of Somervilleland.)  Once their design had been approved, the were given $5 in paper money.  They could spend each dollar on certain quantities of materials (eg, 6 popsickle sticks, 3 pipe cleaners, or 4 sheets of construction paper.)  They began building their inventions.  They have the next period to finish up their projects, and then we will have each group present what they made.

We think this is a great activity, Mrs. Phillips seemed to really like it, she was very involved.  We may have been a bit overambitious with the lesson plan, it would be better to keep it simpler for kids as young as second grade.  But overall it is going really well.  We are looking forward to seeing the outcome of the projects this Friday!