The Energy Retrofit of a Building: A Journey Through Bloom's Learning Domains

At Colorado College, the energy retrofit of a building is used as a service-learning research project to teach physics and chemistry in a variety of courses. In introductory courses for nonscience majors, the project helps students appreciate the scientific method and quantitative reasoning. Within the physical-chemistry course, students see that the abstract science of thermodynamics has very real applications to life. The energy retrofit project successfully teaches inquiry-based science and effectively takes students through all of Bloom's learning domains: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. The most dramatic impact on students is in the affective domain as indicated by student actions following the conclusion of the project and the constant demand for the project offering. (Contains 4 figures.)