1. Imagine that you have to hatch a duck egg, where all you have is a heater and a fan. The egg has to be kept at about the temperature of your hand at all times. How do you make sure that the egg doesn't get too hot or too cool? The heater and the fan both have variable settings.
2. Imagine that a person who is lost and very cold calls you from their cell phone asking for advice on how to get warm and stay warm until the rescue team arrives. It is a cold, clear, windy winter day. Where would you direct the person in the landscape?
3. Think of a cool, clear, windy spring day when you have been asked to find the best place in the landscape to hold a wedding ceremony for your best friend. Where would you place the guests, and where would you position the bride and groom (and why)?
4. The wedding that you helped to plan has been postponed. It is now a hot, sunny summer day and you have been asked by your friend whether the place you selected for them the last time would still be the best place. What would you tell the friend?
5. Near noon on a sunny spring day, lie down on the north face of a hill and pretend that you are a low-growing shrub. Describe the solar radiation you feel. Now move on to the south face of the hill and describe the solar radiation you feel.
6. During a hot summer day, find a place where there is no protection from the sun, where there are light-colored surfaces that will reflect extra radiation onto you, and where there is little or no wind. Describe how you feel—but don't stay there very long! Analyze the place to determine what site design decisions affected the microclimate and in what way.
For the think exercises, try drawing a diagram with arrows representing the flows of energy—one each for convective heat loss, evaporative heat loss, and so on. Make the thickness of the arrow proportional to the amount of energy. Identify the main flows of energy, and decide which ones you want to maintain and which you might want to reduce.