An Inconvenient Truth In The Classroom: Free High School Curriculum

Many Americans have seen the Oscar-winning film documentary, An inconvenient Truth. It is based on a powerful visual and factual presentation on the realities of global warming that was developed through many years of hard work by former U.S. Vice President, Al Gore.

The National Wildlife Federation has, in cooperation with Mr. Gore, and with the support of film producer Particpant Media and the Tosa Foundation, developed an Incovenient Truth high school curriculum that focuses on the science of global warming and educational activities about global warming solutions.

The curriculum and other materials on climate change education can be found on the NWF Climate Classroom website which has age-differentiated sections for both teens and younger children and a wide range od useful parent, child and educator resources.

Click here and scroll down the page to access and download free copies of An Incovenient Truth high school curriculum

Color-Changing Roof Tiles: Dark In Winter & Light In Summer

If you have ever been in an attic in the summer, you know it can be incredibly overheated. In the winter, on a sunny day, it can be surpisingly warm. A group of students are working on a way to have the best of both worlds.

Physorg.com reports:

"The ideal situation, then, would be to get the advantage of white roofs when it's hot and black roofs when it's cold. Now, there may be a way to have both. A team of recent MIT graduates has developed roof tiles that change color based on the temperature. The tiles become white when it's hot, allowing them to reflect away most of the sun's heat. When it's cold they turn black and absorb heat just when it's needed.

The team's lab measurements show that in their white state, the tiles reflect about 80 percent of the sunlight falling on them, while when black they reflect only about 30 percent. That means in their white state, they could save as much as 20 percent of present cooling costs, according to recent studies. Savings from the black state in winter have yet to be quantified." See full article.

Working On Solar Cells That Will Print Like Newspaper

Investing in solar power still has a long enough economic break-even period to discourage more widespread investment. Creating less expensive and more efficient soalr panels is a key aspectof making solar power more universal.

Alternative Energy News reports:

"It is believed that solar cells could soon be produced more cheaply using nanoparticle “inks”. These nanoparticles can help in printing solar cells like newspaper or painted onto the sides of buildings or rooftops to absorb electricity-producing sunlight. Brian Korgel along with his team is working on this low-cost, nanomaterial solution that can replace the current photovoltaics. Brian Korgel is a chemical engineer at University of Texas at Austin. He is quite hopeful that his new technique coupled with different manufacturing processes will lower the price of solar cells to one tenth

Korgel is utilizing the light-absorbing nanomaterials. Their specialty is that they are 10,000 times thinner than a strand of hair. Their microscopic size makes it possible to attain higher-efficiency devices. The inks could be printed on a roll-to-roll printing process. They can use a plastic substrate or stainless steel for printing. It seems that this type of ink could be used to paint a rooftop or building and it doesn’t look like a tall claim." See full article.

New Green Concrete Developed -- Implications For The Building Industry

In the national discussion about green buildings and green development, there is considerable hope that the use of concrete can be made more climate and eco-friendly. Some recent breakthroughs make that more possible .

Jeff Salton at Gizmag.com reports:

"Concrete is the most prevalent building material on the planet, and though the world would be pretty flat without it (not many tall buildings and structures), it does come at a price – around 5-8 percent of all human-generated atmospheric CO2 comes from the concrete industry. A culprit is Portland cement, the binding agent in concrete. It’s the most widely produced man-made material on earth. Production of Portland cement is currently exceeding 2.6 billion tons per year worldwide and growing at 5 percent annually. To halt these alarming pollution figures, innovative research on geopolymer concrete, along with ways of using a waste byproduct from coal-fired powerplants, is being conducted by Dr Erez Allouche, assistant professor of civil engineering at Louisiana Tech University and associate director of the Trenchless Technology Center.

A greener alternative, inorganic polymer concrete (geopolymer) fits into an emerging class of cementitious materials that utilize ‘fly ash’, one of the most abundant industrial by-products on earth, as a substitute for Portland cement. Geopolymer concrete has a number of benefits. The first is it has the potential to substantially curb CO2 emissions. It can also produce a more durable infrastructure capable of lasting hundreds of years, instead of tens. And by utilizing the fly ash, it can conserve hundreds of thousands of acres currently used for disposal of coal combustion products, and protect our water ways from fly ash ‘contamination’, too." See full article.

Using Mobile Phone Towers For Wind Power

As the world moves toward lower carbon energy production it will cause us to look for new power production opportunties including cell towers. This is particularly important for areas where electric distribution is limited.

Paul Ridden of Gizmag.com reports:

"Later this month, Helix Wind Corporation will deliver its first test wind turbines to Eltek Network Solutions Group for installation at two test sites in Nigeria. Sites in the US are also set to take delivery of test modules. The turbines will provide a clean energy solution for mobile phone towers and if tests prove successful, could see wind power being rolled out to hundreds of sites over the next few years.

'Currently such towers are powered by diesel generators, which are bad for the environment and extremely expensive to operate,' said Helix Wind CEO Ian Gardner. 'Anywhere the power grid is unreliable, expensive or simply non-existent, wind is an ideal renewable energy resource able to power these towers and reduce their operating cost."' See full article.

BMW Solar Concept Car With Air-breaking Wind Flaps!

An interesting new concept car collects power using solar panels and then raises them to help it slow down.

Jeremy Hsu at Popsci.com reports:

"The BMW Lovos has 260 exterior flaps that can collect solar power and act as airbrakes at the same time. The wacky car concept comes from Anne Forschner, a 24-year-old graduate of Pforzheim University in Germany. Each scale-like flap holds solar photovoltaic cells and can move to follow the sun or act as individual airbrakes. We can only imagine that seeing a full-scale version of this car driving around might bring to mind a Beast Machine Transformer, or a ruffled feathered dino made metallic." See full article.