Day 5 - WK 1

This morning we had an overview of how to develop a lesson plan and a techfest idea for our project.  We also had an introduction to creating and maintaining a team blog by another RET teacher.  Jesse and I sat down to discuss what direction we wanted our techfest lesson to go, I remembered that the previous year’s techfest were attended by many younger students, so an activity that was very interactive and hands on would probably be our best option. We have an idea to use the snap rovers with the GPS for students to try and plot a route that will save the most CO2 and benefit the most people, by having them drive a route mapped out on the floor and then looking at their results and calculating how much energy they can save from the various routes that they chose. These routes could be pre setup in Google Earth so after they run the routes they can look at their data in a live format and possibly think and hypothesize other cost and energy saving methods of transportation.   

We also discussed that since Jesse teaches Algebra I and II and I teach Physics for freshman which is Algebra I based, we could create a lesson that utilizes compiling GPS data and doing calculations to save CO2 and or create ridesharing opportunities.  One issue is access to technology for every student, however we have discussed possible solutions for this.  Ideally I would like to turn this into a PBL project, where my students will take data, search for patterns and even design better routes or possible ride sharing opportunities and collaborative database for the student population at our campus to share.

During the afternoon we worked on the project notebook page logging our weekly information and data, and creating our blog which we will update with our daily progress.