How Much Time Is Required?

You should allow about 10-12 hours of class time distributed over several days. You need to enroll your class, get permission from the administration, collect the things you need, and find a place to test the solar collectors. Then, students need time to build, test, and refine their collectors. Next, comes Catching Sunshine Day and data sharing and analysis.

Here are few suggestions to help you maximize the time you have available:

• Introduce the challenge in class and have students design, build, and test the collectors outside of class.
  
  
• Block out a few hours during a morning or an afternoon to run Catching Sunshine Day and share data.
  
  
• Appoint a group of students to enter and send data during free time.
  
  
• Work on retrieving and analyzing data in small groups as time permits.
  
  
• Combine the activities into a couple of long days.
  
  

[ Return to Step 1 ]