Innovative concept of an educational physical simulation tool for teaching energy consumption in buildings for enhancing public engagement

摘要

Buildings consume significant amount of energy for heating or air-conditioning in most countries. Therefore, educating the public and young generations to enhance their engagement and encourage them to reduce carbon emission and energy consumption in their daily life is becoming essential worldwide to drive continuous improvement towards more sustainable future. This paper presents an innovative educational tool to simulate energy performance and its use in educating university students and teaching school children about the subject. The paper outlines the developed educational tool and presents its benefits via two detailed case studies, with wide and diverse level of knowledge and learning outcomes. The educational technology includes a small-scale multi-layered model of buildings where insulation layers can be added to or removed from the building's envelop to influence energy performance. Qualitative and quantitative research has been conducted. The results show that the technology is capable of engaging the young generation and to help them to understand the thermal performance and energy efficiency of buildings.