Field-Classroom Interactive Solar Education: The Interactive Satellite Solar Lab (ISSL)

This paper presents a prototype classroom-field interactive teaching and research tool, named Interactive Satellite Solar Lab (ISSL) that transcends the physical boundary of conventional classrooms and expands the venue of teaching and learning to out-of-doors. Tethered wirelessly to the classroom, the satellite lab empowers students to examine real-time performance of solar systems in real world settings. While experiments are conducted in remote settings by a team of students, their experiments and collected data are communicated instantly to the classroom instructor and students. The visual images and collected data from field experiments are simulcast in the classroom where the instructor and other students are viewing them. The data gathered from the field are transmitted to the instructor's and students' PCs or cellular phones. Activities of onsite experiments can be recorded and projected in the classroom. The field team and the classroom students are able to assess field conditions, make decisions, and perform experiments together. The ISSL was developed by a multidisciplinary team of faculty and students in an effort to transform the environmental dimension of architectural education, and to explore and promote a next generation pedagogic paradigm for science and engineering.