Construction Materials Project
The projects essential questions
- How does the structure of matter on the atomic, molecular, microscopic, and macroscopic levels determine its physical, chemical, and biological properties with an emphasis on their use in building construction?
- How do the design of a building, selection of building materials, construction process, and use of a building affect the overall sustainability of a building project and the user experience in the building?
Reflection
Question 1: What new information did you learn through doing this project? Something I learned was the amount of heat loss in homes and the number of areas and their percentages for heat loss. For example, 15% of heat loss is lost through your floors commonly due to the cement slab, which sits just underneath the floors of your home, having inferior insulation capabilities. An 8-inch poured concrete slab or wall will only have an R-value of a little over 1. Why that is interesting to me is that even with heat rising there is still a good amount lost through what is underneath you. Question 2: What new skills, dispositions, or lessons did you learn from this project? A skill I learned throughout this project build process was to spread out my work time and not try to do everything all at once stressing myself out as I have done in the past. For instance deciding to work on one info graphic at a time or just researching, with doing this my mind was able to focus with the one task better than switching between multiple tasks multiple times. I would also say that my advocacy of asking people to read through my work more commonly and give me honest thoughts and critiques for me to make my work better and more readable. Question 3: As I begin planning for next year’s fall semester and project work, what can I do to make the learning experience as engaging and meaningful as possible for those students? I really liked the way you had us doing the entry and exit review starters, they helped me to be able to review over my work and also feel a little more organized. Something I feel could make it all a little better would either be focused questions meaning that each group would get a different question on their certain project to ask by the end of class, which would mean more work for you Steve. The other idea would be to have more one on ones to get another perspective on new ideas and research brought up. |
This is the link to my Building Envelope Infographic. Here
This is the link to my Insulation's Infographic. Here
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Chemistry of Food and Cooking "Fluffy French Toast"
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Reflection: Questions and Responses
D. In what way(s) are cooking and doing science similar and in what way(s) are they different? How are a cook and a food scientist similar or different? a. For me I find the similarities between science and cooking through the hypothesizing; guessing how certain ingredients will affect the end product in cooking, and in science creating a testable statement about the relationship between two or more variables or a proposed explanation for some observed phenomenon. Also for both with testing ingredients in cooking to see how exactly it does change or add, and in science using defined materials such as lab rats, telescopes, and chemicals to obtain data on how it works. b. A difference could be that In cooking, the synthesis of a meal or a dining experience from a set of ingredients using known methods of cooking. In science, the synthesis of an experiment using defined materials (as said before, lab rats, telescopes, chemicals) with scientific equipment to obtain data about how something works. c. Food science concentrates solely on the biochemistry, biology and chemical engineering of food while culinary science integrates both culinary arts and food science. |