EcoCity ☼
Event Location: Cocoa-FL
Competition: Energy Inspired Art
Division: 3-5
School: Sally Ride Elementary
Team Size: 6
EcoCity started as a personal project. What once was a Friendly to Nature house, became an EcoCity Artistic model.
Participants:
Emmanuel (5th grade), Brendan (2nd grade), Neil (5th grade), Zola(3rd), Kens (3rd grade), and Nathan (4th grade). With the collaboration of Landon (3rd grade), Enzo (2nd grade), Manuel (4th grade), Sasha (5th grade), Adelina (4th grade), Knox (1st grade), and Ms. Berriz
Materials:
In this project were used, or should we say REused? all kinds of materials. Everything that you may find here was used before somehow, except for the tape or the glue that we used to put the materials together.
- Cardboard boxes
- Plastic bottles
- Plastic containers
- Paper
- Straws
- Toys
- Fans
- LEDs light
- Lightbulb
- Solar panels
- Fake/ natural plants
Process:
For a couple of weeks, most of us studied at school about energy. Light and Thermo energy were part of the unit that we studied in Science. We also learned about renewable and nonrenewable energy in our gifted class.
In the solar club, we decided to work on a unique project for the EnergyWihiz competition that could combine a deeper investigation of solar energy with modern architecture. We wanted to work on a friendly-to-nature house and we all started the project. We made a lot of research and we couldn’t agree on what model was the most recommendable when people use renewable energy at home.
At that point, after better understanding the properties of heat and light energy, with many ideas in our minds to use renewable energy and design a house that everyone wanted to live in, our people divided into different groups. Some decided to work on a two-story house and include as much solar energy as possible, while others wanted to include wind energy in their house. One house turned into two different projects, and them 3, 4, we all wanted to work on our dream house and show respect and love for our environment and our planet.
Our teacher, Ms. Berriz told us that we could still work together if instead of one house we work in a small ECO-City. Yeah! We are free to apply our knowledge and also to be creative!!! That way we can not only go to the event in Cocoa Beach, but also we plan to keep our city in our school library to raise awareness of the young and less young audience about the importance of using green energy.
We enjoyed the process, and we are proud of our results but, Can we add more details? Yes, this is one of those projects that may never end. The kind of project that may be continued by other generations.
Participants and collaborators worked together to build different structures. Every building was unique but ALL of them used recycled materials and a lot of creativity!!!
Each building has a unique design, thanks to the creativity of the members of this team. The buildings use some renewable energy and intent to educate young people on green energy usage. Every building has a nature-friendly appearance. All together are architectonic pieces of art.
Four family houses, one Beauty Salon, and a City Science Center are on the same street.
Breandan’s house: This house has the most beautiful garage door ever! It uses solar energy for its illumination and rainwater for different shores at home. The master room is on the second floor so when it is nighttime you can see the beauty of the sky and its stars.
Kensleigh’s house: This unique house is small but has everything you may need on it. Two “outside” rooms (library and Science lab) are a big attraction in this minimalist model. The fun starts when you need to use the tube stair to go to the second floor and the slide to get down. The house uses rainwater in the garden to harvest vegetables and fruits.
Emmanuel’s house: This house looks like the houses in Orlando, the city where we all are from. It is a great place to live with a big family. It uses Solar energy and wind energy to keep the house illuminated and fresh. This house has a garden with fruit trees for the community.
Zola’s house: This is a fancy white house that is fresh because reflects most of the sunlight that touches its walls. It has plants all around and uses solar and wind energies instead of fossil fuels to function.
Neil’s Beauty Salon: This town has a very modern beauty salon that uses solar energy to get electricity. The beauty salon is open and fresh. The lateral two-story windows give the building illumination and elegance.
City Science Center: This center offers the visitors different attractions such as a fully equipped Lab, an observatory, and a sundial. It uses solar energy to supply electricity to the building. The illumination and ventilation systems work with solar energy. The windows and an open roof let the sunlight illuminate the interior during the daytime.
The ECO City has a Water Safety Treatment Plant that cleans the water of the city. This plant is also the building that holds the solar-powered light of the common areas.
There is also an alarm system to call the neighbors to meetings and parties on holidays.
Teamwork always brings the best fruits. We all are very proud of this project because it has taught us many things about renewable energy. Now we can explain to our friends and everyone that will attend EnergyWhiz all that we have learned. We will keep this project in the library so everyone who visits our school can appreciate and learn from it.
Some explanations about our Eco-City!
Congratulations to all of you! Beautiful homes of the future, I hope! I so enjoyed your photos and videos! Now we can all enjoy seeing your buildings up close! It is easy to see that a lot of thought and hard work went into this project!
Awesome troop. Beautiful City, so healthy to live in. Can’t wait!
Awesome
I love the vision
It will be a great city to live in
Outstanding! Ideal city these students had created! These is what we need! I love this! The creativity is amazing!!!
Great team collaboration on this project! Wishing you all good luck!
I love that you have a solar club and that you all worked together on this project. It is very well done!