This worksheet guides students to examine their current energy use at home and create a plan to conserve more energy.
Students complete a set of questions, create a map of their home, fill in a data table to track "energy vampires," and write an action plan.
Teaching Tips
Positives
Students are encouraged to actually take action in energy conservation in their homes.
The resource narrows student attention and focuses on just a few easily observable factors that affect energy consumption in homes.
Additional Prerequisites
The worksheet is in PDF format and will work best if printed for students.
Students will need access to their household electricity bills and thermostat information.
Differentiation
This activity would be best done as homework because students need to make observations about their home and appliances as well as have access to information from electricity bills and the thermostat.
Teachers could use this resource in science lessons related to electricity, fossil fuels as energy sources, human consumption of natural resources, resource conservation, and human impacts on the environment.
The worksheet requires students to use basic math skills like counting and addition. Teachers could make this activity more math-heavy by having students graph the data from their "Energy Vampire" data table. Additionally, teachers could have students graph changes they make from their action plan to visualize improvements.
This is an action plan to guide students to audit their energy consumption. It provides logical steps on how to audit individual energy consumption using a household energy conservation action plan. This is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Science
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
5.ESS3.1 Obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth’s resources and environment.
6.ESS3.3 Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.
Social Sciences
Social Science Analysis (K-12)
6.27 Assess individual and collective capacities to take action to address local and regional issues, taking into account a range of possible levers of power, strategies, and potential outcomes.
