I never seem to be ready for my classes in the second semester. The Japanese academic year begins in April. The students break for summer at the beginning of August and come back for more at the end of September. In theory I have a holiday of almost two months, but in practice there is plenty to do, from grading and syllabus design to library maintenance and academic publishing. So in theory I would be focused on research and lesson preparation and be completely ready for my lessons when they come around. But in practice the lack of clear and immediate deadlines means I am free to venture down elaborate rabbit holes of negligible relevance. For example, last year I spent a week investigating ornithopters. If you're not sure what an ornithopter is, you should google it. Or perhaps not.
By early September when the hottest of the summer heat has passed, I'm ready to start teaching again. By the end of September, when the bell rings for the first class of the second semester I am in a state of panic. The only redeeming factor is that I am more prepared than many of the students!
My low energy building class is in the second semester, which makes it a victim to my lack of self-discipline and focus. The course is more-or-less set, the lesson plans made and the powerpoint presentations ready to press play. Good teaching requires effort from the teacher, since students will copy what they see others do rather than listen to what they say. This applies not just to students, but all primates. If the teacher is lazily regurgitating old knowledge then the students will do the same. If the teacher is looking for new information, questioning existing opinions and searching for new ways to engage with people and with knowledge, then the students will do the same. At least that's the hope.
The stated goal of the class is the same: teach students how physics applies to buildings. The hidden goal is the same: indoctrinate students into Passivhaus.
The story needs to start with energy. First we'll talk about what it is, then how it moves, and then how it moves through complex wall structures. Then we can talk about windows and how heat can be lost and gained through them. Windows 2.0 will cover the complexities of multi-pane windows.
At some point we need to talk about air and water, since humidity control is critical for human comfort and building health. We also need to talk about human comfort in general and look at what buildings are supposed to do. I'm not sure of the best order to tackle these two topics. Humidity is part of the answer to the question of comfort, and talking about humidity first will make it easier to understand. Anyway, these two lessons are mostly independent from the five pure and applied thermodynamics lessons above and could interleaf between them, providing a bit of an air gap to make the lessons on windows less of a pain.
Cooling is another topic to cover, once the basics of thermodynamics and humidity have been established.
Power generation is another important topic, that can also be introduced at any time. Since power conservation is a higher priority, it's probably best not to introduce this too early and make it seem too important. It may also be a good idea to have a second lesson with details of solar generation requirements, constraints and optimisation.
Once all of this has been covered, we can look at building standards in Japan and around the world.
That will take us up to fifteen lessons, with an introductory lesson, and one lesson for presentations and another briefing the students on how to give a presentation.
It would also be possible to have a whole lesson on Passivhaus, another on heating, another on thermography, and one on retrofitting. There are perhaps another dozen topics that could be addressed. For the past few years I've wanted to give a practical demonstration of how a heat pump works, using the students as molecules in a Carnot cycle bound by desks in the classroom.
Throughout the course I hope to teach problem-solving strategies, and give them some practical applications of mathematics. Hopefully the numbers will mean something by the end of term. Critical thinking is a skill I think they need.
It would be nice to cover some philosophy of architecture. In many countries architecture courses are twice the length of regular degrees since students must cover both technical and aesthetic fields, making the discipline both an art and a science. Even then, some buildings seem to have been thrown up with no respect for science while others are constructed with no sense of beauty. In Japan architects can be qualified after two years in college, and I can't help feeling that some buildings have been put up neither in the interest of science not art, but just to keep the construction industry going!
