Summer SAVY Session 6, Day 5, Electrical Engineering

Posted by delislss on Friday, July 28, 2023 in blog, SAVY.

Our work this week is complete, but the learning is not! What a powerful final day in our course work! Everything came together for our students to display their learning, presentation styles, as well as support one another with constructive critiques and suggestions for future growth. In small teams, students presented their prepared two-dimensional Electrical Grid Systems Models featuring boundaries, elements, inputs, outputs, and complex interactions within a small city environment. Their electric grid systems had to be of a logical scale and complement their geographic landscapes and features, and had to be representative of carefully planned interactions with other local systems such as transportation, healthcare, communication, economic, educational, industrial, etc. Students defended their work in regard to questions, suggestions, and appreciations, and also received constructive feedback from peer teams. It was inspiring to see their reasoned explanations and motivations of planning and decision-making processes, and it was equally encouraging to see the attention, focus, and verbal engagement of the audiences in discussions of both concept and detail.

Going forward your student may be asking, “What next?” The video library from the American Museum of Science and Energy could provide future activities, or a trip to this and other museums at Oad Ridge would be even more rewarding. If your child wants to make a simple generator at home, I’ve included a link for that. Finally, we acknowledged that the concepts of the final video are way above our heads, but we do understand that there are many fun and creative ways to make models in order to explain difficult concepts and that electrons may behave in unique ways in different context (extreme cold they form Cooper Pairs)! How can I use my new understandings about the science of electricity to consider future projects and endeavors or even careers? What geo-political, social, environmental, or technical understandings do I need to be aware of in relation to energy resource issues? What are the unique aspects of my local energy needs and resources that I should be aware of? What was fascinating this week and compels me to learn more? Where and how can I continue my learning? I’ve included a few links below future learning.

Certainly, an ideal answer to the final question is SAVY or VSA! We hope to see you again soon in another intriguing and motivating course on the Vanderbilt campus. Thank you for making this week available for your child. It has been our honor and pleasure!