Model Classrooms to experiment with cooling methods
Wait. Are those middle schoolers or grizzled window film installation technicians? They’re both! After months of research on passive cooling design and testing on scale models, 6th and 7th graders at Duggan Academy are taking action on the issue of hot classrooms. Despite a couple of snow days throwing a wrench in our school-cooling schedule (ironically), our stellar installation crews successfully installed a window film claiming to reject up to 79% of infrared energy (that’s heat!), in two classrooms.
This project all started at our sWarm event last spring at the Springfield Museum. Mary Seid, Duggan’s 7th grade science teacher, showed up to support her students at the opening of the exhibit and connected with the Cooler Communities team. She had experimented with heat-rejecting window film at home and thought an expanded experiment at Duggan was worth a shot. With data-tracking thermometers deployed throughout the school since November, we’ve got the information we need to measure our impact – and just in time for the May heat.
