In a sample scenario, students are asked to redesign a school house so that it will be warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The colorful cartoons depict SunTrap Elementary school with its asphalt playground, metal roof, and large windows. Additional pictures present some potential solutions that range from running cold water over the roof and turning the school around, to planting trees, adding blinds and awnings, and insulating the walls. Students are then invited to choose or adapt one of these solutions or to invent one of their own, then explain it through narrative, drawings, or diagrams. The book concludes with a series of self assessment rubrics that help students score their solutions based on ease of implementation, cost, and degree of safety and improvement.
Additional guidelines help students develop their own assessment tool.