Creator: Ashley Ashbeck

C&I 371, Spring 2009

 

Lesson 5: From Coal to Outlet: What Can We Do to Save Energy?

Grade Level: 1st Grade

Unit Topic: Energy Conservation

Time Needed: 1 week

 

Lesson Context: In the previous lesson, students created their own energy survey for their classroom, completed it, and analyzed the data to find out how their energy usage compared to the “average.”  The students also delivered their energy surveys to other classrooms for completion.  This final lesson in the unit involves the students comparing their classroom energy usage with the other classrooms (that returned their surveys), and then creating suggestions for the other classrooms that would inspire them to use less energy.  These suggestions will also be inspiration for advertisements that the students create to remind their friends in the rest of the school what they can do to save energy.

 

MMSD Standards:

·         List ways they can participate responsibly in their community (recycling, litter pick-up, planting trees, flowers, etc.)

UW-Madison Teaching Standards:

·         STANDARD 7: UNDERSTANDS AND ADAPTS TO MULTIPLE FORMS OF COMMUNICATIONTeachers understand and adapt to students’ multiple forms of expressing and receiving experiences, ideas and feelings.

Wisconsin DPI Social Studies Standards:

·         A.4.9 Give examples to show how scientific and technological knowledge has led to environmental changes, such as pollution prevention measures, air-conditioning, and solar heating

 

Content Objectives:

Students will learn that…

·         A thermostat is a device that’s on your wall that lets you control how hot or cold your house, or room is.  There are numbers on the thermostat so you know exactly what temperature the furnace is set at.  If you lower your thermostat one degree in the winter, you can save 5% on your energy bill.

·         If all the teachers would turn their lights off for lunch and prep, a district would save over $220,000 each year in electricity.

·         If every home in America replaced just one light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL), we’d save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year.  A CFL uses 75% less energy and lasts about 10 times longer than an incandescent bulb.

 

Process Objectives:

·         Create spectrums using the data collected from the class energy surveys.

·         Analyze the energy usage of the classes and decide where improvements could be made to conserve energy.

·         Share suggestions to conserve energy with other classes.

·         Create an advertisement that promotes an energy saving change.

 

Materials:

·         Chart paper

·         Markers/crayons/art supplies

·         Construction paper

·         Old magazines

·         Scissors

·         Glue sticks

 

Procedure:

·         Throughout the week, prior to this last lesson, the teacher should address a topic off of the energy survey each day, along with interesting facts about it and ways that the students can save energy.  The decisions that the students make regarding how to address these issues and how to become more energy efficient should be recorded on chart paper to reference.  The following are some examples of facts:

o    A thermostat is a device that’s on your wall that lets you control how hot or cold your house, or room is.  There are numbers on the thermostat so you know exactly what temperature the furnace is set at.  If you lower your thermostat one degree in the winter, you can save 5% on your energy bill.  (Take this opportunity, if your classroom has its own thermostat, to talk about what the classroom is set at, and whether we could turn the temperature down one degree.)

o    If all the teachers would turn their lights off for lunch and prep, a district would save over $220,000 each year in electricity. (Bring attention to when the lights are on during the day, and when they’re not.  See if there are times where the class can decide it would be alright to keep the lights off.  As a teacher, pledge that you’ll keep your lights off when you’re not in the room, or when you don’t need them to see better.)

o    If every home in America replaced just one light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL), we’d save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year.  A CFL uses 75% less energy and lasts about 10 times longer than an incandescent bulb. (Draw attention to what type of lighting is used in the classroom, and if there’s anywhere where light bulbs could be replaced with CFLs).

·         Gather all of the data from the class energy surveys that were returned.  Divide the students into groups and give each group one of the surveys to be responsible for sharing that class’ data.  Go through each section of the survey and create spectrums to show where each class stands in relation to each other and their energy usage for that area.  After these spectrums are created, as a class look for which classes could improve in certain areas.  For example, if Class A reported having their lights turned on the most, compared to the rest of the classes, the students can help decide what they might suggest to Class A to reduce their use of the lights.  The student group that was given Class A’s survey would be the group that would be responsible for reporting these suggestions to Class A. 

·         After the spectrums are analyzed, give the students time to put together the presentation that they want to give to their designated class.  Brainstorm as a class what are good speaking skills.  Then, have the students report to their classrooms what they found from their energy survey, and what they could do to change their energy usage to conserve energy.

·         For the final culmination of the unit, tell the students that they are going to create an advertisement that will promote an energy efficient lifestyle change.  Talk about the different types of advertisement—posters, billboards, magazine articles, commercials (TV and radio), etc.  Then, talk about what an advertisement entails—pictures, a slogan, important facts, and most importantly, reasons why a person should listen to the advertisement and make the change or buy the product.  The students are to create their own advertisement that persuades people to conserve energy.  They can choose whatever format they want, but the advertisement must include:

o    A clear message for change.

o    A reason why the change should be made.

·         After students complete their advertisements, decide where appropriate spots would be to put these advertisements up. 

 

Assessment:

This lesson is a summative assessment.  The advertisements that the students create will not only show me that they understand that there are ways to reduce energy usage (or conserve energy), and in their advertisements, having them persuade their viewers why they should make that change shows me that they have internalized why it’s important to save energy.

 

Resources:

“Energy Stars: Little Known Energy and Conservation Facts.”  Retrieved on April 30, 2009, at 

http://www.apsenergyconservation.org/PDF/EnergyFactsforTeachers.pdf

 

“Energy Star.” Retrieved on April 30, 2009, at http://www.energystar.gov/