By Diamon Tesfay, Hannah Bergo, Andrew Rice, and Marilynn Hunt
Starvation is a big world problem. For our creative engineering project, my group made a model of an underground greenhouse. We specifically designed it to be perfect for the terrain and climate of Eritrea, the second hungriest country in the world.
Concepts |
Engineering Design Cycle |
starvation: suffering or death caused by hunger
This was the topic my group chose for our world problem. We researched a lot about it: where it is most common, causes, solutions, and much more. communication: exchanging and discussing ideas and information We practiced this skill by sharing our ideas, opinions, and knowledge. We communicated face to face, on google docs, and while making our slideshow. We are also communicating our findings and solution through our website. research: looking for answers and/or information My group researched to find out more about starvation, Eritrea, and underground greenhouses. Google is a great source for research. |
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Overview My group discussed what world problem we would try to solve for the first two days. After we chose our topic, starvation, we got straight to work. The following few days were spent on the chromebooks researching, taking notes, and sharing facts with each other. Once we compiled a sufficient amount of information, we started brainstorming all of the possible solutions of starvation. My group decided that providing a stable food source would be the best solution.
A greenhouse was the perfect solution. You can grow food for nourishment, and control their growth and resources. Being over watered and wiped out by erosion isn't a problem in greenhouses. Stopping world hunger would be extremely hard and ambitious, so my group decided to choose one country to focus on. Eritrea was our choice. It is a country in Africa and is the second hungriest nation in the world. We designed the greenhouse to match the climate and physical features of Eritrea. The greenhouse would be underground to keep a constant temperature. Since it rains a lot in Eritrea, we created a watering system that catches rainwater and redirects it to the plants. It is controlled so the plants aren't over watered though. Our design was complete. The next thing we did was create a scale model of the greenhouse. This took about a week to finish. The last thing on our agenda was to create a slideshow presentation with important facts and details about our world problem and solution. My group used our notes on starvation to help create the slideshow. We completed the show in a few days and then spent the last two left in the project practicing our presentation. This was a super fun project! |
Reflection
I thoroughly enjoyed this project. It needed a lot of creativity, thought, and problem solving. I loved how we had more free rein in what we built. One thing that I need to work on is staying on topic. My group talked a lot. We would randomly start talking and then people from other groups would come over. We were a little distracting. The surprising thing is that we were a very productive group. A skill I learned was how to manage my time better. We had fun and goofed off, but at the same time we finished a few days early. My group was able to find a balance between fun and work. I also think that I improved my researching skills. This project forced us to get background information before starting it. We had no idea what we were doing until we researched more about our world problem. I liked having the option to choose our own solutions to our world problem. This project is my favorite out of all the projects we've done this year. I hope to do something similar to this in the near future.