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Science & Technology
Polar Panthers
2009
Urban Heat Islands: Cooling Down our Cities and Preventing Stormwater Runoff
Students will research the problem and find out what solutions already exist, how they are implemented in other areas, and what works. Students will then come up with their own solution - either a use of an existing solution, or a new use for an existing technology. Along the way students will use the Internet, library, and other publications for research. They will also attempt to contact experts in the field who can give them an understanding of the issues around the problem and the possible solutions. Once they have completed the project they will share their results with the school and local officials.
Team
AliyahPrince of Peace Catholic School, OH, United States
MaxPrince of Peace Catholic School, OH, United States
SimonPrince of Peace Catholic School, OH, United States
MalikPrince of Peace Catholic School, OH, United States
KasiaPrince of Peace Catholic School, OH, United States
DaniellePrince of Peace Catholic School, OH, United States
Age Range
12 & under
Coaches
Jolene EszPrince of Peace Catholic School, OH, United States
Category
Science & Technology > Earth Science > Weather
Audience
All ages
Language
English
Team Collaboration
Our team competed in the FIRST LEGO League, and we made a web site as a Thinkquest project as a part of our research project. FIRST LEGO League (FLL) is a global competition where teams build & program robots for the challenge table, and do a research project about the theme for the year. This year’s theme was about Climate problems.
Our whole team did research on different climate problems that affect Cincinnati. We talked about which one we thought was the most interesting and picked Urban Heat Islands. Then we all researched solutions for the problem and came up with different solutions. For example Max came up with planting trees, Simon came up with solar powered windmills to blow the hot air away, and Aliyah came up with planting plants on the sides of houses. Kasia wrote all our letters and emails. She wrote our expert, Dr. James Voogt, and we used his used his response to pick our solution. Kasia also did all the graphics for our team. The solution we chose was Max’s – to plant trees in silva cells in porous parking lots. He did all the research on how it would work, and made the flyers with pictures and descriptions on how it would all work. Danielle took all the information, put it in order in our binder, and then our web site. She did the source list too, but Simon reworked the list for the Narrative and put it in order. Simon also did our survey. Malik wrote how our problem and solution have a global impact. Aliyah proof read everything because she is very good in English class and finds all the mistakes. Because Danielle had created a web site for our FLL competition, we just divided it among us and copied and pasted it back into ThinkQuest. Because we all worked together it didn’t take us long to complete the Narrative web site. We didn’t have any real problems, because most of the work was done already. If there had been problems we would have done what we did during FLL, we would have all sat down and talked about it.
Team Diversity
We have different people in our class from different places so we have different ideas. We have 3 boys, 3 girls, 3 white people, and 3 African Americans. Not all of us have Internet access. Finally we all don’t have the same religion but we all have similar beliefs. Because we are all different we all have different ideas, and because we have different ideas we’ll be able to look at problems differently. For example, Simon came up with an idea that was complex and Max came up with a simpler idea. Then every talked about it and we decided which would be the best. Our diversity helped us to come up with better ideas.
