Summary of lesson:
Students will design and build a lunchbox cooled with a thermoelectric tile and heat sink fans in this unit. Students will learn about heat and heat transfer and explore how engineers and inventors apply these concepts in fields ranging from food safety and transportation to green design to public health. Focusing on the idea of keeping foods and beverages at an ideal temperature, students will consider the design of currently available coolers, lunchboxes, and other food transportation and storage devices. They also will consider new designs for improving these devices and new users of them, ultimately designing and prototyping a thermoelectrically cooled lunchbox using Peltier tiles.
Time/Duration:
Each unit is designed to be 90 minutes. Teachers break down the lesson based on schedule minutes and available time. Example: 7th-8th grade science teaches 1 unit a week, and he meets 3 days a week, once for 55 minutes and twice for 90 minutes. It depends on deep educators who want to take it.
Learning Principles by Subject Area:
Science: Heat transfer and energy, heat, prototyping, electricity and circuits
Subject areas/Standards:
Breakdown of lessons:
1. Invention Introduction
Students do warm-up activities and discuss invention. Students play “Four Corners” to help the educator assign diverse teams.
2. What is Heat?
Students do hands-on activities that demonstrate convection, conduction, and radiation, and begin to discuss problem solving and invention in the context of food safety and transportation.
3. Keep Your Cool
Students explore the thermal properties of various materials, then design and build a simple device that will both keep a cold item from warming up and a warm item from cooling down.
4. Removing Heat
Students learn about evaporation and evaporative cooling. They also learn about the thermoelectric effect, experiment with Peltier tiles, and brainstorm ways they might use these devices in their invention.
5. Peltier Prototyping
Students build a Peltier cooling unit, made of a Peltier tile sandwiched between two heat sink fans. They compare how the tiles function, with and without being attached to a heat sink. Then they design and build a lunchbox prototype out of cardboard and a Peltier cooling unit. Finally, they test out their lunchboxes and provide feedback to other teams.
6. Invention Extension
Students conceptualize a purposeful invention that uses their new minds-on and hands-on skills.
Click here to Download the list of materials and tools used in this guide.
