Work in progress — A systems engineering approach for educational explorations of bike machine eMergy

We explore ways to coax and coach riders to probe syllogisms, to frame questions on how to get the additional calories needed, and to challenge the belief and to test the idea that generating electricity through bike machines is a viable source of energy. To give students more entry points to eMergy education, we apply a system engineering approach to analyze curricula that use bike machines. This broad approach fuels students´ imaginations and challenges their ingenuity to probe beyond individual sustainability opportunity costs and to create a greater range of choices in the future. The narrow perspectives of some past bike-based curricula have left some learners uninterested. Our broader perspective connects a Seedling eMergy Space Voyage Experiment to catabolism/nutrition activities. Through the bike machine experience, the learner is engaged to think about both their diet and their body appearance. Students also assess the plausibility of considering the food they eat as a source of energy. Today´s instant gratification will be contrasted with the delayed gratification understanding with plant growth, diet and digestion processes with the bike machine´s relatively fast response time.