Ian has been using a new app with his Year 9 class. Energy Island by Siemens Education users are responsible for providing the electricity to 5000 inhabitants and must power all the services for 24 hours both economically and without damaging the environment. Users learn about different ways of producing electricity and their advantages and disadvantages.
Ian decided to ask the students to give some written (open ended) feedback for this app. The students were asked to point out flaws in the electricity generation and use model the app uses. Their comments are listed below:
You didn't see the size of the city. It didn't represent seasons, so in winter more people will be using heaters and lights whilst in summer people will need less heaters and lights on at night.
The resources don't run out so quickly in real life. The game seemed biased to renewable energy.
I think that the flaws were that there weren't different seasons as the amount of energy produced could be determined by the weather. It was also biased as the most energy was produced by things that produced renewable energy.
When asked how they would improve the app the responses were:
Use different scenarios for the seasons. It didn't show clearly that the renewable resources don't... (unfinished)
The app could use numbers and measurements instead of bars.
You didn't see the size of the city. It didn't represent seasons, so in winter more people will be using heaters and lights whilst in summer people will need less heaters and lights on at night.
The resources don't run out so quickly in real life. The game seemed biased to renewable energy.
I think that the flaws were that there weren't different seasons as the amount of energy produced could be determined by the weather. It was also biased as the most energy was produced by things that produced renewable energy.
When asked how they would improve the app the responses were:
Use different scenarios for the seasons. It didn't show clearly that the renewable resources don't... (unfinished)
The app could use numbers and measurements instead of bars.