Episode 41 – BURRRing Your Own A/C

 First, you will need to download the BURRRing Your Own A/C lab manual.

Nothing is quite as great as coming inside after playing in the hot sun and feeling the air conditioning (or A/C) hit your sweaty skin. Except, this is a feeling many people have never experienced because having an air conditioned home or building is an expensive luxury.

This episode will teach us how to create eco-coolers, devices used to cool houses all over the world where access to A/C is not possible. Eco-coolers work by increasing the pressure of the space air would normally be escaping. By increasing the pressure, the temperature decreases. Inventions like the eco-cooler help people worldwide as heat exhaustion, stroke, and death become increasingly prevalent.

Saskatchewan Curriculum Connections: LT1.2: Analyze different ways in which plants, animals, and humans interact with various natural and constructed environments to meet their basic needs.  SM3.2: Assess the function and characteristics of strong, stable, and balanced natural and human-built structures. MC5.3: Assess how the production, use, and disposal of raw materials and manufactured products affects self, society, and the environment. WE5.3: Analyze the impact of weather on society and the environment, including technologies that help humans address weather conditions. HT7.1: Assess the impact of past and current heating and cooling technologies related to food, clothing, and shelter on self, society, and the environment.  HT7.2: Explain how understanding differences between states of matter and the effect of heat on changes in state provide evidence for the particle theory. HT7.3: Investigate principles and applications of heat transfer via the processes of conduction, convection, and radiation.