![]() MIT student Chaitra Chandrasekhar works with Tobin School students who are filling out the Personal Energy Calculator |
While the Yerevan
group met weekly for a semester, covering a broad array of topics, they
entered into several parallel activities with Cambridge. Everyone
filled out a Personal Energy Calculator chart designed to be used in
any country to add up an individual person's energy consumption. Tobin
students visited the new Cambridge
City Hall Annex, a "green" building with a heat pump, and
constructed with "green" materials. The Yerevan students took a
field trip to their local traditional gas-fired power plant. Physics
teacher Arpine Harutyunyan commented that while students study
about transformation of heat into electricity in theory, it was
important to have a chance to show them the process-- to see all the
equipment and the chain of processes, and to hear the numerical data
about the working of the station. Tobin students devoted one class
period to trying out a bicycle-powered generator that was hooked up to
both an incandescent light bulb and a compact fluorescent one, and
comparing their efficiency. |
![]() Tobin students visit Cambridge City Hall Annex, a new “green” building |
| Both groups were
assigned to come up with imaginative ideas for gadgets or methods to
save energy which we called "What IFS" (IFS="Inventions for Sustainability"). The Yerevan students put winning designs on a T-shirt, and produced a short newsletter. The Tobin students made short videos in which they presented the winning designs with lively scripts and diagrams and dance performance interludes by the 8th Grade Girls' Dance Group. The project was funded by a grant from the US State Department, through Sister Cities International, as part of their "Central and Eastern Europe, Eurasia and the Balkans Sustainable Development Exchange Program." For more information, see websites for CYSCA www.cysca.org, YCSCA www.ycsca.am and The Tobin School www.cpsd.us/element/tobin/directory/Grade8/Energy_Project/Intro.html |
![]() Workshop to launch Energy Project in Yerevan: Astghine Pasoyan introduces the project to students of School #106 |
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Since February, student after-school clubs at Cambridge Rindge & Latin High School and School #190 in Yerevan have been taking on a topic that is far afield from their own daily concerns, and far from their own national boundaries,, but is of global significance. They are researching and taking on the roles of the ten African countries that depend on the water of the Nile Basin. Through email they will enter into a mock negotiation to agree on how to share access to the water. The advisor in Cambridge is Aren Ghazarian, an alumnus of the CYSCA summer program who has experience working in a number of international settings, and a deep interest in conflict resolution. Toether with CYSCA Coordinator Joanne Hartunian, he will seek to bring in experts from local universities and NGOs. Partial funding for this project was received through a grant given by Hewlett Packard to Sister Cities International to fund four sister-cities ies partnerships to promote global citizenship and community leadership in young people worldwide. The other partnerships are: Rice Lake, Wisconsin with Zamberk, Czech Republic; San Diego, California with Jalalabad, Afghanistan and Sebastopol, California with Chihirin, Ukraine. In addition, four students from each partnership will be selected to take part in SCI's 50th Anniversary International Youth Summit on Global Citizenship in July, which is part of SCI's 50th Anniversary Conference. |