EETD Helps Design High
School Physics Class
By Allan Chen

Instructor Nick Kyriakopedi shows high school students how to make a refrigerator, using curriculum develped by Berkeley Lab. Photo by Ted Gartner.

In a cavernous workshop and classroom at Laney College in Oakland, a red balloon, stretched over the lip of a glass flask on a small portable electric burner, is expanding as the water in the flask starts to boil. The steam is expanding the balloon, turning it from red to pink. Some two dozen pairs of eyes are watching, waiting, perhaps, for a mishap if the balloon gets too big.

"The heat is doing work," explains Richard Fairly, the instructor. "It's causing the gas to expand, and the gas is taking up more space as the molecules hit each other faster and faster. That's increasing the volume of the balloon."

But the balloon never gets large enough to burst as Fairly turns down the heat a bit, while explaining what he means by 'establishing an equilibrium.' Then he's discussing what thermodynamics is all about.

Welcome to "Physics for Building Science," a class being taught this summer at Laney for Oakland high school students who have completed algebra, geometry, and chemistry. The class is an opportunity for them to learn about physics by way of the workings of environmental control technology - refrigerators, air conditioners, furnaces and other such devices.

"One goal for this class is to motivate high school students to participate in Laney College's Environmental Control Technology program," says Janice Lord-Walker, the Oakland Unified School District teacher who started the class.   She hopes that some of her students will become HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) engineers--a field with a shortage of skilled workers and abundant job possibilities.

Working with the instructors to teach, lend support, and help the students succeed are scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), including Rollie Otto, head of the Center for Science and Engineering Education, and Phil Haves and Evan Mills of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division (EETD).

Summer of Soldering at Laney

During the five-week program, the students learn high school physics through hands on activities and demonstrations. In the afternoon, are taught some of the principles and skills they will learn if they go on in the environmental control technician training. The week a reporter visits, they are working together to build a refrigerator. The students, between 15 and 18 in age, are doing their own welding, brazing, soldering, and flaring.

They have also learned about energy use and efficiency in buildings through project based investigations of heating and lighting as it relates to comfort in buildings on campus. The students are using infrared temperature sensors to measure temperatures throughout a room, and taking light meter measurements to see how the room is illuminated by its electric and daylit components.

Another tool that the students use is an Excel spreadsheet-based energy simulation program. Joe Derringer of the Derringer Group (and former staffer at Berkeley Lab), has produced easy-to-use software that simulates a room, and air conditioner with all of its components so that students can determine how to size the unit properly to keep the room cool, (or warm, for the case of furnaces), and how much energy it uses. They can also figure out how much heat is contributed to the space by energy-using loads such as electric lighting and appliances.

On Thursdays, the class goes on a field trip. They have looked at Laney College's own HVAC (heating, ventilation air conditioning) plant, and that of the nearby Oakland Federal Building. They have also been to Pacific Gas & Electric's Pacific Energy Center, a San Francisco facility that helps educate professionals and the general public about energy efficiency. The day after the red balloon demonstration, they will visit Berkeley Lab's EETD, where researchers study energy use and develop technologies for buildings that use energy more efficiently.

"We wanted students who were interested in physics, and a mix of students from all ethnic groups, both sexes, and grade levels," says Lord-Walker, who is on special assignment for the Oakland Unified School District. Drawing at least two students each from Oakland's 14 high schools, the students attend the course for five weeks from 9 am to 4 pm, earning high school and college credit. They also receive a $600 stipend, since they can't work at a summer job while they are taking the class. The physics course meets the science requirements of the state of California. Some of the students come from Oakland schools where no physics is offered.

"By offering concurrent community college credit to the high school students," says EETD's Evan Mills, "the class builds a rare bridge from high schools to community colleges and, ultimately, to exciting vocations.   Without classes like this, high school students are unlikely to even know that careers exist in building energy management." Mills has lectured in the class, demonstrating the Energized Learning website, which helps students perform energy audits of homes. He also helped in the early stages of conceptualizing the curriculum.

Berkeley Lab Teacher Training Provided Resources

Lord-Walker is the motivating force behind this program. She has participated as a leader in the high school student research participation program and science teacher professional development program for high school teachers at Berkeley Lab's Center for Science and Engineering Education since starting as a teacher in 1988. "I've gone most years," she explains. "I've taken classes in physics, genomics, and other fields. Last year, I worked with Robert van Buskirk [a researcher in EETD]. We were metering refrigerators, computers, electronic appliances, learning how to better save energy."

At Berkeley Lab, she also learned how to build a refrigerator, doing welding and soldering and other such work herself. "I thought it would be great to get high school students involved. Laney College was already developing a curriculum centering on HVAC for community college students." With National Science Foundation funding, and help from Laney's instructors, Lord-Walker set up her high school physics class. The class is her project for her own participation in this year's Teacher Training program at Berkeley Lab.

"The national labs are a great resource for me," says Lord-Walker. " I like having Berkeley Lab in the area."

The need for this type of class has never been greater. According to Rollie Otto, Head of the Lab's Center for Science and Engineering Education, "There has been an elimination of technical courses in the high schools, replaced with standards-based course that have an academic focus to prepare all students for college. But some students do better in practical learning environments. The ECT Physics course is designed to provide students who would choose careers as environmental control technicians or building managers with the foundational knowledge of physics called for in the California Science Standards. We think this provides the best of both forms of education." Otto helped draft the course outline and wrote the section in the National Science Foundation application for funding the class.

[Berkeley Lab researchers Philip Haves and Evan Mills are working with Laney College to develop the HVAC community college curriculum]

Building a Refrigerator

In the afternoon, the kids return for their lab session. This week, the components of a refrigerator are being shaped under the watchful eyes of Lord-Walker and Laney instructor Nick Kyriakopedi. "All of the kids receive safety training during the first week," Lord-Walker says. Indeed, all of the kids are wearing safety glasses and gloves as some of them mount copper coils into a frame.

Meanwhile, in another room, a group of students is sitting at computers, working on PowerPoint slide sets. Learning report skills, and completing a final presentation is an integral part of the course.

"Many of these students have never had any hands-on experience with, for example, using an acetylene torch...You can see what a difference it makes to them when they realize they can do something they never expected they'd be able to," says Lord-Walker. She is hoping the class will motivate the girls, who make up about half the class to study science and engineering as well as the boys.

Two of those girls take a few moments from their lab work to talk about their participation. "My teacher inspired me to take this class" says Sherricka Love, who will be a senior at Castlemont Leadership Prep. With her teacher's help she applied on the day the application was due and was accepted. "I'll probably end up going here now," she says, "I had never heard of Laney before, but there are so many classes you can take here." Love's high school does not offer a physics class, so the Laney program was a great opportunity.

Lavinia Takapu, another senior-to-be, attends Skyline High School, and talks about how this class is different from a regular physics class. "I like the hands-on work," she says. "We've learned a lot about heat, temperature, and lighting. I liked looking at a motor, learning how it works." Love echoes these comments: "I liked building the evaporator--working with the torch, bending the metal. I liked doing hands-on work." Takapu says she is not sure what she will do in college, but she will take a look at Laney's Environmental Control Technology program.  

After five weeks, these students will have learned basic physics, including thermodynamics and electricity, and lab safety; performed building simulation exercises; conducted an energy audit with Energized Learning; learned how to make measurements of environmental conditions in rooms; built a refrigerator, developed a power point presentation; and visited Bay area sites that professional HVAC engineers find interesting and challenging.

Perhaps it's appropriate to let a student have the last word. She said "I didn't expect this was going to be a REAL CLASS!"