Applications of Building Science to Decarbonize Defective Housing Stock

Developed by: Nicolás Maggio, Joshua Paul Maldonado, Roger Grande (Consultant)

For Grades: 9-12

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Building a Sustainable Future: Teaching High School Students to Retrofit for Climate Resilience

Day of Climate: Applications of Building Science to Decarbonize Defective Housing Stock" is an educational module designed for high school students in grades 9 through 12. Developed to address global housing poverty and climate vulnerability, the curriculum connects the technical fundamentals of building science and weatherization with urgent humanitarian and environmental concerns. Students explore how inefficient housing—specifically within informal settlements in the Global South—exacerbates energy poverty, safety risks, and carbon emissions. Through this context, the course aims to inspire a new generation of community-minded building scientists and advocates the use of cost-effective retrofitting as a tool for climate adaptation and mitigation.

The curriculum is highly interactive and structured into five distinct parts, beginning with a personal home energy assessment and progressing into the technical mechanics of heat transfer, air leakage, and thermal insulation. A central element of the program is the Model House Experiment, where students step into the roles of building scientists to form hypotheses about a home's performance, test variables like air sealing and insulation, and analyze real performance data. Ultimately, the module concludes with a final lab report and an applied project, challenging students to propose sustainable, SDG-aligned housing improvements for informal settlements while introducing them to relevant green professions.

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