Be Energy Wise!

In a Nutshell:

In this lesson students learn how electricity comes into their homes and what appliances and devices in their homes use electricity. They create reminders and/or posters to help their families remember to turn off lights and reduce hot water use.

Goal:

To help students work to reduce energy-use in their homes.

Background Learning:

Teachers should be familiar with the material found in:

• High School Backgrounder #1: Climate Change: What’s the Big Deal?
• High School Backgrounder #14: Helping in your own way

Other backgrounders may also be helpful and can be found by using the outline.

Learning Outcomes:

Click on the icon for your territory to review the learning outcomes that are addressed by this lesson:

Introduction to Lesson Plan:

Climate change is a pretty heavy topic for primary students, and it’s important not to burden them with negative information and a sense of powerlessness, so for this activity we’ve focused primarily on solutions. This lesson provides basic background about energy use, its link to climate change, and provides an activity that helps children become part of the solution.

Activity:

1. Introduce basic concepts of electrical energy. Point out the lights in the classroom. Turn them on and off. Ask: What makes the light come on? Then: How does the electricity get into our classroom? Explain the generation of electricity in your community, drawing each step on the board, e.g.,
   
   
   • A generator (burning diesel), or a hydroelectric project (using water power), creates energy.
   • Transmission lines (held up by transmission towers) carry the energy to a substation, where the energy is divided up to send to homes, schools, etc.
   • Distribution lines (held up by power poles or buried underneath the ground) carry the energy into our homes and schools.
   • The electricity travels through wires in your walls until it gets to the electrical sockets or lights controlled by switches.
   • To get the energy to turn on a light (or an appliance), usually we have to turn on a switch or plug an appliance into a socket. This is to make sure we are only using energy when we need it.
   • A meter measures the amount of electricity that goes into your home. Your parents pay for the amount of electricity your household uses.
2. What things in our homes and schools use electricity? Brainstorm a list of common electrical appliances and other energy-using devices. Make sure light and hot water are on the list. Look over the list you have developed and ask: What would it be like if we ran out of electricity?
3. Explain the two problems relating to electricity use:
   
   
   • Much of the electricity in the north is generated by burning diesel, a fossil fuel. Diesel is made from oil, and when the oil is all used up, that’s it!
   • When fossil fuels, such as diesel, burn, they emit a greenhouse gas called carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the air. This is bad for the earth, because carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and more of it in the atmosphere is making the earth hotter. (Depending on the level of your class, give a brief summary of the greenhouse effect.)
4. Explain the good news: We can help by using less electricity! How can we help people in our school/ family reduce the amount of electricity they use? (Answers: turning lights off when not in use, using low-wattage lightbulbs, using less hot water (shorter showers, cold-water wash), etc.)
5. Discuss how to help your family reduce their electricity use (and save money, too!): Ask: Do lights ever get left on at your house, even when there’s no one in the room? Then: Why? Brainstorm ways they could help their families reduce energy waste. One way is to post reminders, to help family members remember to turn lights off when not in use, and also to reduce their hot water use. Discuss where such reminders could be posted, e.g., on or next to light switches, next to showers, etc.
6. Design a number of different memory prompts. Examples of messages:
   
   
   • Beside light switches (or on light plates): Please turn me off when you leave. Lights out? Please turn me off; help save energy!
   • Beside the shower: Please be quick: short showers save energy!
7. Another option would be for students to design a poster for their home on the need to save energy.

Handouts:

None.

Student Web-Exchange:

Students can post examples of the memory prompts to the Student Web-Exchange and share their efforts to reduce energy consumption with students across the north. Click on the icon for information on how to post material.

Evaluation:

Evaluate the students’ efforts to develop memory prompts to encourage better energy use in their homes.

Enrichment Ideas:

Science, Social Studies and Art:

Reducing Our Transportation Greenhouse Gases (GHGs): Extend the ideas in this lesson to a discussion of transportation, explaining that a major source of GHG emissions is transportation that burns fossil fuels: cars and trucks. Brainstorm ideas of how to reduce car use. Ask students to create posters including these ideas.

English Language Arts, Drama:

Puppets Against Climate Change: Using the information on the importance of reducing energy use that they have learned through the class discussion, work with your students to create a puppet play.

About the Author:

The Yukon Conservation Society Curriculum Team – The team consists of teachers, writers, environmental educators and curriculum specialists. We worked with teachers across the north, helping them to create lesson plans for the website, and gathering input about website features, backgrounders and lesson plans that would be useful in northern classrooms.