Upcycle-Topia (A Sustainable and Energy Efficient City)

Event Year: 2023
Event Location: Cocoa-FL
Competition: Energy Inspired Art
Division: 3-5
School: Timber Lakes Elementary
Team Size: 4

We are a team of fourth graders from Timber Lakes Elementary School. We (along with two other students) won third place in the virtual EnergyWhiz for our energy transfer machine, The Strikers, and were given the chance to enter the in -person contest as a result. We chose to enter the Energy Inspired Art contest so that we could upcycle some of the materials we used for the first contest (and some other materials available to repurpose from our school’s STEM Lab) and make a city out of recycled materials for our Energy Transfer Bowling team to “live” in. Our city is like a Utopia because it uses renewable energy and is made from materials that might have been thrown away and eventually into a landfill. We have tiny people helping with the environment so it won’t turn into a garbage can, they are many things around this little world helping and saving the environment by using energy responsibly.

Welcome to our energy inspired art project, Upcycle-Topia, a sustainable and energy efficient city!

Medium: Repurposed scrap paper from poster board and painted scraps, upcycled materials from our energy transfer machine, upcycled materials from Lego robot kits that contain a lot of packaging, large cardboard boxes, markers, upcycled cardboard boxes

Team Members:  Jenna L.(grade 4), Abigail B.(grade 4), Ava P.(grade 4),Daksha A.(grade 4)

The process we followed to create our Upcycle-Topia project included:

  1. We brainstormed ways we could use our E.T.M project materials to create an art project that can teach others about responsible energy use.
  2. We researched and thought about ways renewable and non-renewable energy are used in our local community and in the world.
  3. We imagined a Utopian world where everyone recycled, built community gardens, used water responsibly, and harvested natural resources to power a community and came up with the name for our project.
  4. We planned and designed how we would repurpose the materials that would have gone into trash bins and decided we wanted the Lego people from our ETM project, The Strikers, to live in this world.
  5. We began building Upcycle-Topia.

Here are close up photos of some of the highlights of our energy inspired art city, Upcycle-Topia:

This building shows a solar panel up close. It is used to collect energy from the sun. The panel on our largest apartment complex also has wires connecting to all the buildings in our city. We also have rooftop gardens.
Our Neighborhood Market featuring Locally Grown Produce
“The Strikers” have a museum in Upcycle-Topia because this 3rd-place winning Energy Transfer Team helped us to enter the energy inspired art contest.
Our city transfers wind and solar energy through the red “wires” to give all of our buildings electrical energy.
We each had a “mini” Lego figure representing ourselves in Upcycle-Topia
Our buildings feature solar power to use the renewable energy of the sun.
We encourage walking and biking instead of using vehicles that use non-renewable energy in Upcycle-Topia to help conserve energy and keep our air clean.
We have a community garden and use water from our town rain barrels to water our plants.
One of our rain barrels also helps to fill our community pool.
We plant trees and stop them from being cut down because trees add clean air and oxygen to our city and they remove carbon dioxide.
Our garden is next to our pool and they both use water that is recycled and filtered from our rain barrels.
Our giant wind turbine powers our city using renewable energy from the wind. The back of our city features a museum that honors the strikers which was the energy transfer machine bowling team we designed for another contest, that we repurposed materials from our energy transfer project to make this city.

Watch our video to take a virtual tour of our city!

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