This workshop works as the active learning element of a flipped classroom. Before doing the workshop, students are assigned pre-class (passive learning) material to study individually. For the purpose of this workshop material should be about passive design at the building scale (e.g. passive heating, passive cooling, natural lighting and the role of building fabric and insulation and airtightness). You can find suitable pre-recorded lectures on the topic from the www.arch4change.com website (in the PASSIVE RESILIENCE theme).

The aim is for students to understand and apply in their own designs the principles of passive design and its role in energy-efficient and low carbon design, before active systems and solutions such as renewable energy are considered. More specifically, the objective is for students to learn tools and approaches for:

• Designing low energy buildings (passive resilience)

• To select suitable renewable energy technologies to meet the remaining energy needs

• To estimate energy use and carbon emissions, both io the building before, and after application of renewable energy technologies

This workshop has 3 steps. It can be undertaken by individual students / student groups, but ideally it is facilitated in a classroom setting by the teacher and students work in small groups (two to 5 students). The workshop can be done online (with students in breakout rooms, and an online shared digital tool to work collaboratively with a teacher moving between breakout rooms), but ideally it is done face-to-face to ease communication and e.g., making manual calculations and to more freely discuss the results in the groups.

The space should be set up as a seminar room with tables for the student groups and ideally the different workshop steps and case study information are provided as a hardcopy handout to students that they can write on. Access to a projector is needed. -

In summary, students calculate yearly energy use (using standards/benchmarks) of a typical house or a Passivhaus (step 1); they then calculate the carbon footprint (step 2) based on a given fuel scenario. In step 3 they estimate the energy production + carbon reduction based on a given scenario (e.g. 26m2 of PV and 6m2 of solar thermal). -

Peer-learning is essential:

• Students help each other in small groups. Teachers walk around and facilitate and check results, and answer questions.

• In the larger group students compare (and if time calculate themselves the other case) Suggested timetable for the full workshop: 2,5 to 3 hrs, with a 15 min break half way through.

  WORKSHOP structure:-

• Pre-task: students understanding key principles of passive design which can be found in the PASSIVE RESILIENCE theme in www.arch4change.com – there are several connected short lectures they watch in advance prior to the workshop (i.e. as flipped classroom).

• To kick off the workshop, a 30 minute discussion in small groups on the passive design pre-task is given, setting specific questions for students to discuss and also allowing students to bring their own topics and questions.. Key points are drawn out in the larger group. Key issues to draw out is ‘why design matters’.

• This is then followed by:

  • a 30 minute talk about the purpose of the workshop, workshop background (in this case about how we estimate energy use and carbon emissions of a building and some brief information about key renewable energy technologies – see material in ENERGY AND CO2 theme on www.arch4change.com) &

  • an introduction to the workshop. While all the following 3 workshop steps are introduced, students undertake them 1 step at a time (some go faster), and teachers move between groups to ensure all students have concluded each step before starting to the next step as a group.

• Step 1: Estimating a case study’s operational energy use and carbon emissions (15 mins)

• BREAK (15 mins)

• Step 2: Calculating the building’s (operational) carbon footprint (30 min)

• Step 3: CO2 reductions from renewables (30 min)

• Step 4: Wrap up (15 mins)

  o (i.e. going through results and what they mean- though this is also discussed with teachers in smaller groups) and final reflections on what was learned in the whole group.

The output of the workshop are estimations of a case study building’s energy use and carbon emissions, before and after the application of renewable energy technology, in numbers (i.e kWh/m2a and KgCO2/m2a) and the use of renewable energy-decision matrixes (see ENERGY AND CO2 theme on www.arch4change.com). The insights go beyond this however, and the reflective discussion based on comparison between a highly energy efficient building and the energy use of a typical home leads to an understanding of the connection between energy and carbon, different fuels, and how important passive design is to reduce energy use to lead to lower carbon emissions and make the application of renewable technology more feasible.

The learning activity itself is not evaluated (i.e. formative assessment), but peer discussion and teacher feedback provide ideas and reflections on the outputs. This task could be considered https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/practice/Pages/assessment.aspx to support “assessment as learning” (https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/practice/Pages/assessment.aspx), where (shared) reflection and (self-)monitoring of students’ design process informs their future goals and aspirations and steers their learning process forward.

• It can be adapted to include more renewable energy technologies, and different benchmarks and standards, or between countries, or for example based on students’ own energy bills.

• The facilitator of the workshop needs to have an adequate understanding of passive design, but especially of the material included (ENERGY AND CO2) in order to help students complete the workshop tasks and lift the discussion to a deeper level.

The key learning outcomes for students are:

• Increasing knowledge about passive design, energy literacy and confidence with energy and carbon issues, in particular:

• to become familiar with passive design principles and some key renewable energy technologies.

• to understand the importance of low energy design, its impact in terms of carbon emissions.

• To be able to estimate a building design’s energy use and carbon emissions – i.e. footprint calculations.

• To be able to use solar technologies to reduce a case study’s building’s energy and carbon footprint.

• To understand the connection between different energy needs, fuels used and carbon impacts.

• Ability to apply these principles to one’s own design projects after learning the principles.

For educators, the reflective discussions with students likely help deepen / broaden their own understanding of ENERGY AND CO2.

It would be recommended that the facilitator of this workshop is familiar with ENERGY AND CO2, as this helps the facilitation of the workshop and supporting in-depth application of knowledge. It is recommended that the facilitator (educator) familiarises themselves with the pre-class materials students are being given.

It is also good to show a simple pre-worked example. Printing out the handouts is also really helpful so all of the tasks and case study information are in one place. Some students can then also move ahead if they want to. Allow space for manual calculations to be written down. Make numbers easy (e.g., round of m2 etc so easier to calculate).