Sustainability

Challenge 2: The Sustainable School- Teacher Lesson Plans.

To familiarise students with the idea of renewable and non-renewable energy resources and the concept of efficiency in energy use.

Lesson objectives

Students will be expected to:

Work effectively within a group
Discuss within a group
Communicate effectively with others
Understand that we use a variety of different energy resources on a day to day basis
Understand that the majority of the energy we use comes from non-renewable resources

Lesson Outcomes

By the end of this lesson:

All students will be able to appreciate that we use energy from a variety of different resources, most of which are non-renewable.
Most students will be able to appreciate that non-renewable energy resources will one day run out and that we can make them last longer by using them more efficiently.
Some students will be able to appreciate that there is a pressing need to reduce our dependence on non-renewable energy resources but the situation is complicated by economic and social factors.

Curriculum links

KS4 Science

Practical & enquiry skills: 2a-d
Communication skills: 3a-c
Applications & implications: 4a,b
Chemical & material behaviour: 6c
Energy, electricity and radiations: 7a,b
Environment, Earth & universe: 8b

Lesson Requirements

Time required

One hour.

Pre-Lesson preparation required

Some research will need to be done to ascertain the following:

The type of system used for space heating/water heating within the school
Whether or not the walls of the particular classroom in use are insulated
If the classroom ceiling is directly below the roof, whether or not the roof void/loft space is insulated.

Materials and equipment required

For the students (per team)

A copy of the Student Activity Sheet

Prior knowledge required

Students should be familiar with the difference between renewable and non-renewable energy resources and aware of the link between our use of non-renewable energy resources and issues such as climate change and pollution. They should be familiar with the meaning of the term sustainable as something which is able to carry on into the future with no negative impacts on the environment.

Lesson structure (including approximate timings)

Housekeeping (4 minutes):

Introduction of lesson and explanation of aims and objectives. Arrange students into teams of three or four.

Intro. Activity (15 minutes):

The session could begin with a brief review of the different types of energy with each team given one minute to write down as many types of energy as they can.
Teams can then be asked which types of energy are most useful to us and why. The key point here is that the most useful types of energy such as electricity and chemical potential energy are useful because they are easily transformed into other types of energy.
Explain that students are going to carry out a brief audit of energy use in their classroom and then consider how this energy could be used more efficiently and the proportion of energy from renewable resources might be increased. The Student Activity Sheet accompanying this lesson plan will help with this.
If appropriate to the group, students can carry out this activity with an element of role play as a team of sustainability consultants called in to audit energy use at the school.

Team Activity (35 minutes):

As a team, students now need to consider the different types of energy used in their classroom and whether those types of energy are produced from renewable or non-renewable resources.
Typically students will identify electrical energy used for light and powering a variety of appliances and heat/thermal energy for space heating and hot water. In a science lab they may also identify the chemical potential energyin the gas used to power the Bunsen burners. In the case of space heating they will need to know how your school produces this energy i.e. gas, oil or other methods.
Teams can then use the Activity Sheet to help in generating a percentage of the energy used in your school which is produced from renewable resources.
The next phase of the activity is for students to investigate how energy is lost or wasted. This will be mainly through walls which do not have cavity wall insulation and roof voids which are not lagged.
Electrical energy will also be wasted by leaving computers etc on standby when they could be switched off.
Teams can then use the Activity Sheet to come up with an approximate energy efficiency figure for the classroom.
The final phase of the activity is for students to design their own sustainable classroom. This can be done in a number of ways, depending on how much time is available.
The quickest way is for each team to suggest three energy saving measures which could be implemented in their classroom and present them back to the rest of the group.
Alternatively, each team could design from scratch a complete sustainable classroom using their scientific knowledge of topics such as heat transfer, energy loss in conductors due to heating etc.
If ICT is available you can go online and take virtual tours of sustainable housing projects to give the students inspiration. Below are 3 good examples of existing projects. (Alternatively, there may even be a project near you that can be visited):

1. Hockerton Housing Project, UK
http://www.hockertonhousingproject.org.uk/SEFS/ID.765/SEFE/ViewItem.asp

2. BedZED, UK
http://www.peabody.org.uk/pages/GetPage.aspx?id=179

3. Research House, Australia
http://www.build.qld.gov.au/research/research08.asp#

An interesting way of approaching this is to allow students to use any idea or approach as long as it is scientifically valid and could actually be implemented, disregarding costs. This can give students an opportunity to think as creatively as possible and come up with ideas such as using superconducting cables to minimise energy loss through joule heating or encasing the classroom in a vacuum to prevent heat loss through conduction and convection.
This in turn can lead to interesting discussions as to why these ideas might not be feasible – large amounts of energy needed to keep superconducting cables cold and large amounts of energy needed to keep a vacuum sealed classroom at the correct temperature and to properly ventilate it.
Clearly state to the students what the rules/parameters are for the task.
At the end of the design phase students should present their findings back to the rest of the group in a short presentation.

Closing (6 minutes)

Summarise key points:

We use energy from a variety of different resources but the most useful forms of energy are those which can be readily transformed into other forms of energy.
One way of helping to tackle climate change and other issues associated with the use of non-renewable resources is to use those resources more efficiently.
The ways in which we choose to tackle climate change and dwindling reserves of non-renewable resources have to be based on good science but there are other factors, such as economic and social issues, that also have to be taken into account.
End.

Extension/Homework

This activity could be extended to look at energy use across the school as a whole.

Differentiation

Adapt discussion sessions to suit ability and age group
Provide extra support during group activity for those students who require it.
Higher ability students could be given a budget to implement their energy saving measures and required to find real costs from online sources which they would need to reference.

Risk assessment

It is the responsibility of the supervising teacher to carry out all risk assessments with regard to this activity and to make sure that any such risk assessment complies with the requirements of the particular institution in which it is being conducted.