Swamp Cooler

This month's activity teaches students specifically about evaporative cooling air conditioning systems. In Swamp Cooler, student teams design and build their own evaporative cooler prototype devices using a household fan, cardboard box and paper towels. They learn about the process that cools air during the evaporation of water. They make calculations to determine a room's cooling load, and thus determine the swamp cooler size. The activity is part of a lesson that contains a great deal of important information on heat transfer. This activity adds to students' understanding of the behind-the-scenes mechanical devices that condition and move air within homes and buildings for human health and comfort.

The Engineering Pathway Portal to the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) brings together quality engineering education materials from all over the internet allowing teachers to search all of these documents in a single location. Each month during the year in the Pre-Engineering Times, the Engineering Pathway highlights one or more engineering activities available on the collection related to the month's theme. This month's activity is from the TeachEngineering Digital Library, which is a part of the Engineering Pathway.