Thank you so much for making this opportunity available for your child!  The level of engagement and enthusiasm was ELECTRIC!  Mr. Knight, your student’s teaching assistant, and I truly look forward to our next meeting on Saturday, February 15th.

Today the young engineers and designers experienced what a natural disaster can do to your planning!  Right in the middle of new hire orientation to design a recreational facility, we have power outages in eight states.  It’s all hands on deck! Our design team’s assignment is on hold to assist linemen and grid workers get things back in order in the midst of hurricane and tornado damage!  What do we know?  What do we need to know, and how can we find out?  The lists of questions are long.

In orientation, we’ve learned (thanks to Davy, my aquatic teacher assistant) systems include boundaries, elements, inputs, outputs, and interactions. Systems can be interdependent, so what other systems are in critical need if the power grid is dysfunctional? What subsystems do we count on to solve the power disruption?  What do we know about electricity that we should keep in mind as we plan to work in adverse conditions?  Are there other problems that must be discovered before we plan?  Break out the maps and grids, and let’s take a look at this as a team!  We got active in text and on line research as well as with investigations of circuits and materials that we categorized as conductors and insulators.

Of course, safety became a major part of our conversations. We are limited in our experiments and those must include adult supervision. When actual disaster strikes, we must always take precautions. Check out NES Safety website with your child to discuss at home electrical safety and ask them about the experiments we’re planning in class.

See you soon!

Mrs. Byrd

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