Dates:
Part 1: INSTINCT - Wednesday, February 25
Part 2: THE SITE - Wednesday, March 11
Part 3: SUSTAINABLE BUILDING - Wednesday, March 25
Part 4: THE SUN - Wednesday, April 8
Part 5: STRUCTURE - Wednesday, April 22
Part 6: ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH - Wednesday, May 6
Part 7: MAKING A MODEL OF YOUR CLASSROOM - Wednesday, May 20
Part 8: THE SKETCHUP - Wednesday, June 3
Times: 11:30 AM EDT
Grades: 7-8, 9-12
Theme: SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES
Cost: $300/ 2 VCs/ $1200 for Entire Program Series/ or membership price*
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Re-imagine the Classroom! Learn! Imagine! Participate!
Architecture for Humanity and the Global Nomads Group are hosting a design competition, which will tackle the health, environmental and performance concerns associated with today's classrooms. Due to economic factors and rapid growth of our schools, portable, makeshift classrooms are now permanent features on schoolyards across the country.
The 2009 Open Architecture Challenge invites you to partner with architects in your community to design better, greener classrooms for our schools. Take back the classroom! GNG has partnered with Architecture for Humanity to offer the Open Architecture Challenge. This global contest is an opportunity for faculty and students to work with designers to create a healthier learning environment. Your personal experience meets professional know-how.
Your students will:
- Learn about architecture and healthy buildings.
- Explore the design process and develop their own creative ideas.
- Learn real skills used by designers. Participate in a process that will see results.
- Work with professionals and experience possible career opportunities.
A comprehensive architecture/design curriculum is available to teachers who are interested in the Classroom Challenge. For more information, please see:
http://www.openarchitecturenetwork.org/challenge.
Lesson 1: INSTINCT
Wednesday, February 25
This curriculum was designed with the Portable Classroom Challenge in mind. It was intended to develop a mutually positive relationship between designers and schools. Students will be encouraged to take their individual interests (math, science, art, computers) and expand them within the context of architecture and classroom design. Emphasize the positive and influential role students will have in bettering classroom designs of the future. Their voices will be heard and their knowledge respected.
Lesson 2: THE SITE
Wednesday, March 11
Drawings done in this lesson will be valuable for the rest of the unit. They will be good for a reference in classroom design and placement, and they will be valuable resources for the architects that are partnered to work with your class for the Portable Classroom Challenge. This lesson will also introduce students to measurements. The outcome of this lesson will vary, depending on resources available (i.e.: drafting tables and scales) and grade level.
Lesson 3: SUSTAINABLE BUILDING
Wednesday, March 25
This lesson plan will cover key concepts of ecological building, resource conservation, energy consumption (building construction and building lifespan), and material lifecycle. Your goal is to get students thinking about where buildings come from. Develop the understanding that building construction and building use consume huge portions of the world’s natural resource.
Lesson 4: THE SUN
Wednesday, April 8
A basic understanding of the sun’s seasonal and daily patterns is invaluable for environmentally friendly building. Climate responsive building was traditionally standard practice, now many architects and designers are returning to these principles to break the cycle of high energy consuming building systems.
Lesson 5: STRUCTURE
Wednesday, April 22
Modular and portable construction is different than other permanent structures we know, but the basics are still the same. This lesson will familiarize students with what’s hidden behind the walls.
Lesson 6: ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH
Wednesday, May 6
You have already discussed sustainable building materials, now you will cover another kind of ecology. Toxins and poorly ventilated buildings often contribute to poor environmental health and sickness of the buildings occupants. In this lesson, students will learn about healthy buildings and how to recognize unhealthy conditions that lead to mold or other hazards.
Lesson 7: MAKING A MODEL OF YOUR CLASSROOM
Wednesday, May 20
Use models to expand design communication tools, and to further design development. A lot of questions will be answered during this step of the game. Make sure the students understand that this is a great time to make changes to their designs, because they will be visualizing parts of the building that may have been hard to imagine.
Lesson 8: THE SKETCHUP
Wednesday, June 3
The online tutorials are a great place to start learning SketchUp basics. As a classroom is a fairly simple geometric shape, students should be able to present their classroom designs as 3D digital renderings.
All GNG programs are aligned with the U.N. Millennium Development Goals:
- Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
- Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
- Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
- Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
- Goal 5: Improve maternal health
- Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
- Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
- Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development
The Open Architecture Challenge program is aligned with these National Educational Standards:
-FINE ARTS
-GEOGRAPHY
-MATH
-SCIENCE
FINE ARTS (Grades 9-12):
NA-VA.9-12.1 UNDERSTANDING AND APPLYING MEDIA, TECHNIQUES, AND PROCESSES
Achievement Standard:
- Students apply media, techniques, and processes with sufficient skill, confidence, and sensitivity that their intentions are carried out in their artworks
- Students conceive and create works of visual art that demonstrate an understanding of how the communication of their ideas relates to the media, techniques, and processes they use
Achievement Standard, Advanced:
- Students communicate ideas regularly at a high level of effectiveness in at least one visual arts medium
- Students initiate, define, and solve challenging visual arts problems independently using intellectual skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation
NA-VA.9-12.2 USING KNOWLEDGE OF STRUCTURES AND FUNCTIONS
Achievement Standard:
- Students demonstrate the ability to form and defend judgments about the characteristics and structures to accomplish commercial, personal, communal, or other purposes of art
- Students evaluate the effectiveness of artworks in terms of organizational structures and functions
- Students create artworks that use organizational principles and functions to solve specific visual arts problems
Achievement Standard, Advanced:
- Students demonstrate the ability to compare two or more perspectives about the use of organizational principles and functions in artwork and to defend personal evaluations of these perspectives
- Students create multiple solutions to specific visual arts problems that demonstrate competence in producing effective relationships between structural choices and artistic functions
NA-VA.9-12.3 CHOOSING AND EVALUATING A RANGE OF SUBJECT MATTER, SYMBOLS, AND IDEAS
Achievement Standard:
- Students reflect on how artworks differ visually, spatially, temporally, and functionally, and describe how these are related to history and culture
- Students apply subjects, symbols, and ideas in their artworks and use the skills gained to solve problems in daily life
Achievement Standard, Advanced:
- Students describe the origins of specific images and ideas and explain why they are of value in their artwork and in the work of others
- Students evaluate and defend the validity of sources for content and the manner in which subject matter, symbols, and images are used in the students' works and in significant works by others
NA-VA.9-12.4 UNDERSTANDING THE VISUAL ARTS IN RELATION TO HISTORY AND CULTURES
Achievement Standard:
- Students differentiate among a variety of historical and cultural contexts in terms of characteristics and purposes of works of art
- Students describe the function and explore the meaning of specific art objects within varied cultures, times, and places
- Students analyze relationships of works of art to one another in terms of history, aesthetics, and culture, justifying conclusions made in the analysis and using such conclusions to inform their own art making
Achievement Standard, Advanced:
- Students analyze and interpret artworks for relationships among form, context, purposes, and critical models, showing understanding of the work of critics, historians, aestheticians, and artists
- Students analyze common characteristics of visual arts evident across time and among cultural/ethnic groups to formulate analyses, evaluations, and interpretations of meaning
NA-VA.9-12.5 REFLECTING UPON AND ASSESSING THE CHARACTERISTICS AND MERITS OF THEIR WORK AND THE WORK OF OTHERS
Achievement Standard:
- Students identify intentions of those creating artworks, explore the implications of various purposes, and justify their analyses of purposes in particular works
- Students describe meanings of artworks by analyzing how specific works are created and how they relate to historical and cultural contexts
- Students reflect analytically on various interpretations as a means for understanding and evaluating works of visual art
Achievement Standard, Advanced:
- Students correlate responses to works of visual art with various techniques for communicating meanings, ideas, attitudes, views, and intentions
NA-VA.9-12.6 MAKING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN VISUAL ARTS AND OTHER DISCIPLINES
Achievement Standard:
- Students compare the materials, technologies, media, and processes of the visual arts with those of other arts disciplines as they are used in creation and types of analysis
- Students compare characteristics of visual arts within a particular historical period or style with ideas, issues, or themes in the humanities or sciences
Achievement Standard, Advanced:
- Students synthesize the creative and analytical principles and techniques of the visual arts and selected other arts disciplines, the humanities, or the sciences
GEOGRAPHY:
Environment and Society
- Standard 14: How human actions modify the physical environment.
- Standard 15: How physical systems affect human systems.
- Standard 16: The changes that occur in the meaning, use, distribution, and importance of resources.
MATH:
GEOMETRY STANDARDS:
- Analyze characteristics and properties of two- and three-dimensional geometric shapes and develop mathematical arguments about geometric relationships
- Specify locations and describe spatial relationships using coordinate geometry and other representational systems
- Apply transformations and use symmetry to analyze mathematical situations
- Use visualization, spatial reasoning, and geometric modeling to solve problems
MEASUREMENT STANDARDS:
- Understand measurable attributes of objects and the units, systems, and processes of measurement
- Apply appropriate techniques, tools, and formulas to determine measurements
PROCESS STANDARDS:
Problem Solving
- Instructional programs from prekindergarten through grade 12 should enable all students to -Build new mathematical knowledge through problem solving
- Solve problems that arise in mathematics and in other contexts
- Apply and adapt a variety of appropriate strategies to solve problems
- Monitor and reflect on the process of mathematical problem solving
Reasoning and Proof
-Instructional programs from prekindergarten through grade 12 should enable all students to—
- Recognize reasoning and proof as fundamental aspects of mathematics
- Make and investigate mathematical conjectures
- Develop and evaluate mathematical arguments and proofs
- Select and use various types of reasoning and methods of proof
Communication
-Instructional programs from prekindergarten through grade 12 should enable all students to—
- Organize and consolidate their mathematical thinking through communication
- Communicate their mathematical thinking coherently and clearly to peers, teachers, and others
- Analyze and evaluate the mathematical thinking and strategies of others;
- Use the language of mathematics to express mathematical ideas precisely.
Connections
-Instructional programs from prekindergarten through grade 12 should enable all students to—
- Recognize and use connections among mathematical ideas
- Understand how mathematical ideas interconnect and build on one another to produce a coherent whole
- Recognize and apply mathematics in contexts outside of mathematics
Representation
-Instructional programs from prekindergarten through grade 12 should enable all students to—
- Create and use representations to organize, record, and communicate mathematical ideas
- Select, apply, and translate among mathematical representations to solve problems
- Use representations to model and interpret physical, social, and mathematical phenomena
SCIENCE STANDARDS:
Content Standard F:
- As a result of activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop an understanding of:
- Personal and community health
- Population growth
- Natural resources
- Environmental quality
- Natural and human-induced hazards
- Science and technology in local, national, and global challenges
What to expect from The PULSE
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