Our Project
By Heston Wilson, with Gigi Zarrehparvar, Nicholas Lloyd, and Diego Gutierrez.
The project
For this project our group made a proposal for the new science building at our school. To get the skills to design it we first built a model of a house to practice day lighting, which is the most effective/efficient use of natural light. Before that, we learned multiple different things about other unrelated topics. Like earth's layers, subatomic particles, gravity, and some electricity and energy efficiency. Also, we studied solar angles during the day. Then, did some research on different types of energy.Finally, we designed the science building that we planned to build.
Reflection:
I feel like I struggled a bit in this project. Usually I did alright. One of my high points was getting the whole group to work together on the project with building. Another one was making mostly everyone in my group feel included. I did have some low points when I was trying to get my group to help me but they didn't. One of those was trying to get some members of my group off of snapchat. Another low point was getting a little annoyed at them when they didn't help. Overall, I know for the next project to try and treat my group mates better, and try to inspire them to actually do more work.
Energy Justification Document:
Our presentation
Concepts:
Earth's Layers:
Crust:
This is the outside layer of the earth, and the only one we have ever really dug into and analyzed. It consists of continental and oceanic crust. Ranging in depth from 20-60 miles under some mountain ranges.
Mantle:
The largest layer of the Earth, the mantle consists of molten rock, magma. According to Nat Geo, the mantle makes up 87% of the Earth's total volume. Due to this size, The upper part of the mantle is more solid, whereas the lower part is more liquid and hotter.
Outer Core: This layer is made up of liquid iron and nickel. It is incredibly hot, and is suspected to constitute the earth's magnetic field.
Inner Core:
At the center of the earth, this layer is the hottest and is made up of solid iron and nickel.
Gravity:
We covered orbital gravity and learned the equation for it, which is force = G*m1*m2/distance^2. This gives the force of attraction between two celestial objects.
Orbits:
Due to gravity, the planets orbit around the sun. They orbit in ellipses. We made a model of these orbits and tried to accurately predict something given certain information.
Solar Angles:
During the winter due to the tilt of the earth the sun does not get as high in the sky. We had to account for this when daylighting. In the winter the sun gets around 55 degrees max height. In the summer it can get 80 degrees.
Atomic Structure:
Atoms:
Atoms are the unit that most matter is made of. Atoms are made up of a nucleus with protons and neutrons and are surrounded by electrons that orbit in a kind of cloud.
Neutrons: They are a neutral particle that is bound in the nucleus. They account for a lot of the atom's mass.
Protons: These are positively charged particles that are also in the nucleus.
Electrons: These are negatively charged particles that orbit the nucleus of the atom. They are responsible for electricity.