A teacher's guide to energy conservation activities for grades 3-8

Welcome to the online Energy Smarts Team Training Manual! The purpose of Energy Smarts Team training is to provide students with tools and information they need to effectively monitor energy use within their school building. Energy Smarts Team activities build teamwork among participants. They also increase awareness of energy resource issues.

The curriculum is available for download in four sections, all of which are in PDF format and require the Adobe Acrobat Reader program to view. The reader program can be downloaded at no charge here.

Energy Smarts Team Training Manual

• Introduction
  Purpose and procedures, overview, training agenda

• Activities
  • White Water Rafting: An exercise to familiarize students with the idea of simulations. Also serves to loosen up the group.
  • H.T. Rae Simulation: Builds problem solving and teamwork skills. Begins a discussion and appreciation of finite resources and how they can be managed for the greatest benefit.
  • Cookie Mining Simulation: A fun exercise that ends with the students being able to eat the cookie. It reinforces the meaning of finite resources and builds an appreciation of different perspectives and the implications they have on management strategies. Strengthens graphing and math skills.
  • School Energy Consumption: Starts to build an awareness for how energy is used in a school. It begins to relate energy use to specific activities at the school. Reinforces lesson relating to graphing and developing different hypotheses.
  • Electrical Pathways: A poster is used to motivate a discussion of how electricity is produced and used.
  • What's a Watt?: A watt-rate meter is used to measure and compare energy used by typical classroom appliances such as lights, an overhead projector, radio, etc. Excellent tool for demonstrating the effect of different measures such as replacing an incandescent bulb with a fluorescent one.
  • What's a Therm?: Presents background information and exercises to increase awareness of natural gas as an energy resource, how it is measured, and the relationship between it and other resources.
  • Meter Reading: Follow-up activity that help smotivate students to apply their Energy Smarts Team training outside of school. After instruction at school, the students are able to read and record their electric and gas meters at home. Good vehicle for use of math and graphing skills and for discussions about energy use in their homes.
  • Pre/Post-test

• Logistics
  Student procedures, team member agreement, log sheet

• Supporting Materials
  "Top Ten Tips to Try to Tame Terrible Temperature Thieves," National Energy Foundation information on various forms of energy