Build it Green (BIG) Teaching Building Energy Systems Through Systems Thinking and Modeling
Category: Oral Presentation
Author(s): Ella Snyder
Presenter(s): Ella Snyder
Mentors(s): Laura Cole
This investigation examines socio-ecological systems thinking (SEST) among middle school students in the rural Midwestern U.S. through a place-based energy literacy unit. By utilizing the school building as a living laboratory, the unit challenges students to trace energy flows between natural and built environments, culminating in a capstone project where they participate in a simulation to design energy-efficient classrooms that balance human comfort (thermal and visual) with environmental outcomes and budgetary constraints. Using a mixed-methods approach, the research analyzes student outcomes through in-depth interviews and pre/post-unit assessments. A consensus-based coding process was employed to identify how students perceive the natural and built environments as interconnected energy systems and whether interaction with a digital simulation supported greater growth in SEST from pre to post test. Preliminary findings indicate significant growth in students' mental models, specifically in the identification of system elements and the linkages between them. Importantly, students’ own classroom environments, and the extent they used a simulation during the unit, strongly influenced their SEST. However, students largely overlooked original sources of energy (e.g., sun, wind, coal) and instead conflated energy conversion sites (e.g., power plant) as the original energy source. These results suggest that technology-enhanced place-based curricula effectively support students’ development of SEST; but students may develop alternative conceptions based on what they see regularly in their environment and may also easily overlook the original natural reservoir of energy that fuels their built environment. The presentation concludes with theoretical implications for sustainability education focused on developing students’ SEST.