Here Comes the Sun

Program Overview

What We Did

Science teachers' experience over the past years indicate a decline in students’ interest in Sciences and also in their learning outcomes. Our project engages with this issue and it combines the two theories into the teaching practice in order to overcome this obstacle. Working in this framework, we asked students to choose a big construction that they want to engage with. This was done in order to offer students the opportunity to choose their learning environment, through a Hands-On-Science construction. Students' decision was to build an innovative greenhouse from scratch. On the other hand, we, as teachers, saw their goal as an opportunity to teach them all things needed to be taught, in order to build the Greenhouse, and many other relevant to the Sun subjects.
Students’ main construction, the Greenhouse, would use Solar Energy to keep the Greenhouse warm during the night, an idea that was a very challenging one from the beginning. All students engaged in this project came from different educational backgrounds, abilities, age, sex and race and they participated successfully in this learning experience.

Year 1 - Design and Research

During the first part, students needed to plan their construction. Therefore, they experimented with materials and light properties, they researched possible solutions, they constructed a model of the Greenhouse, they studied about the Sun and its relative movement with Earth and learned how the Solstices occur. During this part they also learned how to conduct a valid experiment, how to construct a model, how seasons occur and how to plan the construction of a real building. They also studied materials and their properties as well as light properties and they built Solar Cars, a huge Sundial in the school yard, and many more.

Year 2 - Constructions and Evaluation

During the second part, "Building and Assessment", students gathered all necessary materials and built the Greenhouse and the Solar Panels. This part was the most exciting for them since they could see the embodiment of their studies. They constructed the Greenhouse from scratch, and this offered a unique “Hands on Science” experience. After building the Greenhouse, they planted the greenery that they studied and chose as suitable for greenhouse growth, and they monitored their growth. They also assessed the performance of their construction by measuring the electricity consumption of a heater with the underfloor system on and off.

Year 3 - Implementation in the teaching process

The third part was about the exploitation of the Greenhouse. Students conducted experiments regarding the factors that affect the plant growth and they had the opportunity to compare the strawberries’ size from plants grown in and out of the Greenhouse. During this study they also were taught about Archimedes Principle, statistics (random sample, variant, variable, mean value, dispersion) and interpretation of results. They studied the Greenhouse effect and they conducted a valid lab experiment that they designed. During this study they also created a model of the Sun and they studied about Sun Flares, through chemical reactions in the lab.