Lighting on demand in public and outdoor sports areas

In many towns and cities, lighting systems have not been updated over the last few decades; on the other side, technological improvements have been huge. In this activity, we propose to create or improve a lighting system in the school environment with the aim of improving energy efficiency while teaching the importance of optimizing society’s electricity consumption (with all the consequences this implies) and making a greater use of public resources. The first question we can ask our students is if there is any place in the school environment where the use of lighting systems can be optimized. For example, a sports field or a public park. If the answer is yes, we can ask them to work as a team to try to propose a system that improves the environment.

This activity proposes to interact with different stakeholders, such as the Local Government (specifically, with the department in charge of the management of public places, or energy) with whom our students can discuss about the lighting systems or about the level of improvement, or with experts (professionals, university departments) in lighting systems (to know the latest technologies available in lighting) or technological companies (to know which technology can be used to create a system like this one). Once the problem of the activity has been raised (how can we improve the lighting of public spaces in the school environment?), we propose to start with a gathering information phase (via the Internet or by consulting experts such as those mentioned above) and, after that, a work phase to propose solutions. In the best scenario, in a classroom there will be as many different solutions as number of work groups.

Finally, we propose to present the conclusions achieved both to families and neighbours of the school surroundings and to the Public Administration, inviting them to implement them in a real scenario.

Age: 10 to 17