You are a newly hired employee for Arkansas Entergy. Your first assignment after completing the company’s orientation program is to work as part of a team that has been asked to redesign and upgrade your classroom. This project is backed by both federal and state funding. Your role is to ensure that power (electricity) requirements are planned appropriately and are adequate for the new classroom. You must also design a comprehensive backup plan for the classroom. What will happen in case of power outage? Your training in college stressed building management and planning, not electricity.
What do we know? What do we need to know? How can we find out? What have we learned?
You will be mapping the floor plan of your classroom You will be mapping the floor plan of your classroom. Before you begin we are going to look at some floor plans of various buildings to get an idea about how to do this. Think about how the other groups will be able to understand the symbols you use on your floor plan. What procedure will you use for labeling your floor plan and creating a key?
What are the boundaries of this system? List some important elements of this system. Describe the input to this system. Describe the output from the system. Describe some important interactions among the elements of the system. Describe some important interactions between the system elements and the input into the system. What would happen if the interactions among system elements could not take place? What would happen if interactions between system elements and input could not take place?
How do you think power is delivered to this building? How do you think electricity is delivered within the building? Where would you need electricity? Why? What are some safety issues to deal with when planning the electricity delivery system for this building?
Draw floor plans of your classroom. Go on electricity scavenger hunt.
What kinds of things did you see on your scavenger hunt? What are the items in these photos? How are the items in these photos related to electricity? How are the electrical needs of this school similar to the electrical needs of the building you will design? How are they different?
How has the scavenger hunt and discussion changed your understanding of your problem? Problem- you need to redesign your classroom with power requirements that are planned appropriately and are adequate as well as safe. How did your point-of-view of the problem change when considering electrical hazards and safety?