ALBEDO AND THE URBAN HEAT ISLAND EFFECT: ACTIVITY

Engineering Simulation: Chill City Game

 

Overview

In this activity, students will play Chill City, a game that allows them to practice their engineering skills and design a city with a high albedo! In their Change is Simple lesson, students learned how the Urban Heat Island Effect is exacerbating climate change. This activity gives students the opportunity to make sustainable changes to a city to lower its overall temperature. Students will have a set of challenges to complete while playing the game and reflection questions to answer following the game.

Materials

  • Student computers

  • Student worksheet printed here

  • Writing utensil

  • Link for game

Activity Duration:

1 hour

Essential Questions

  • Was there an environment that was difficult to cool down? How did you navigate this?

  • Was there an effective strategy that cooled down the city a lot?

  • What roadblocks did you run into when you were designing your city?

 

Instructions

  1. Open up Chill City: https://chill-city.com/#/

  2. Start by choosing one of the three regions: Las Albusconix (hot and dry), El Houslanta (hot and humid), or San Porteattlopolis (temperate).

  3. There are cooling improvement options at the top of the page. Click through each of them to learn more about what they do and how much they cost.

  4. Complete the following challenges:

    • CHALLENGE 1: Cool down your city until you get a notification that the region you chose is the “Chillest City”.

    • CHALLENGE 2: Cool down your city (until becoming the “Chillest City” while filling the environmental impact bar over 50%.

    • CHALLENGE 3: Cool down the other two regions until they both become the “Chillest City”!

  5. Answer the reflection questions at the bottom of the worksheet!