Carbon Free 2018

My virtual world project for level 5 students was named Carbon Free, so no real surprises on what is likely to be required here. The project requirement is to create a desk to application written in Java that will simulate the electrical consumption of a small residence that is powered from renewables.  As with the presentation of all my virtual world projects the purpose for me is to see how the environment can be structured and presented in such a way that it produced a viable pedagogical ly sound solution. As with earlier ventures I have made use of Note boards notecards, interactive simulations and activity logging to a MySQL database.

On arrival a series of four numbered note boards explain the task and how to proceed with the simulations; note rotating carbon molecule was purely aesthetic.

At this point students are made aware that there are five renewable energy types hey need to understand and these are:- Water turbine, wind turbines, Solar cells, solar collectors and wood burning stoves, though this last category seems to have dropped from inclusion recently. While each of the builds is powered by a combination of renewable energy resources, there will be a particular notecard based tutorial accessed through a picture in each of the builds. 

The image here shows the eco warrior’s solar pod; as with all the builds you can purchase scripted versions at Slmarketplace or free unscripted versions at Openworldz. The pod is powered by a wind turbine, solar cells and a solar collector. 

The screen shot below taken inside the pod shows a number of domestic appliances some of which are switched on (green messages) while other are switched off (red messages); an appliance can be switch on or off by simply touching. 

On the wall of the pod a power monitor can be touched on that will report on the consumption of appliances, the power available and carbon saving and this is data that students are able to use as a means of verifying their own simulated results.

The tutorial that can be accessed in the pod is for a wood burning stove shown in the image here. Touching the picture will dispenses a note-card that explains the physics and then poses a question to be solved; each question has randomised values so students will receive a unique version.

Once the question on the postcard has been solved then the postcard is dropped into a postbox outside each of the builds.

The virtual world learning project ran for a week and the six participants clocked up close on 600 transactions, a busy and as far as I can tell very successful time.