(How) can we use LEGO to think through questions of energy and climate change?
Shared by PETER KRAFTL
(How) can we use LEGO to think through questions of energy and climate change? The University of Birmingham part of the Climate Action Network team has been collaborating with local organisations to think through questions of energy in/and climate change. We have been working with staff and pupils at St Paul’s Community Development Trust, exploring ‘energy’ through artistic, creative and experimental encounters. This week, we visited ThinkTank science museum in Birmingham, which engages children with technologies past, present and future. We built wind turbines from LEGO and tested them using powerful fans. This afforded a sense of the embodied energies – the work – that goes into building renewable energy technologies. We experimented with wind energy – adjusting our wind turbines, and our bodies, to maximise the electrical energy produced (visible through light bulbs attached to the turbines). We then reflected on the advantages and disadvantages of wind power. However, we also need to ask ourselves – what are the opportunities, trade-offs and, especially, the tensions involved in using plastics to address climate change…and (how) can we overcome these?
