Teaching sequence

10 min

Tune In: How does Scientific Research impact us?

30 min

Find Out: Conducting Our Energy Audit

15 min

Take Action: recommendations

5 min

Reflection

Tune In: How Does Scientific Research Impact Us?

Preparation

Talk to your school staff

Communicate to your co-workers what groups are doing and how/why they are completing this audit. Double-check that students are able to enter the different rooms and collect the data they need with minimal disturbance to other staff. Make sure students are aware of where they can and cannot go and what behavioural expectations are.

Set expectations

Remind students how much time they have to complete the project and encourage students to be realistic about the tasks they need to complete in that time. Make sure they are mindful of staff and other students working and that they are to stay focused.

Maintain a high level of communication with each group.

Make sure that everyone has what they need to complete the work they have been allocated and that everyone knows what they should be doing.

Step 1

Ask your students: When was the last time scientific research changed something in your life? This can be a hard one to think about! Our lives are changing every day due to scientific research, but often in ways we don’t notice. Sometimes there are big changes, like the development of the COVID-19 vaccine, that we are very aware of, but often little changes, like a new kind of light bulb, go more or less unnoticed. Today we’re going to do our own research and see if we can use this information to improve our lives. We’re going to look at the electricity we use in our school, how it is made, how we use it and how we waste it and see if we can make some changes to improve the system.

Step 2

How do we generate electricity?

Show students a video as a prompt to get started in this lesson. We recommend this short video on Click View.

Or this one on YouTube:

Power Stations & The National Grid | Electricity | Physics | FuseSchool

Step 2

Pose the following question to your students and record all of their answers in a word cloud.

What do we have in our school that uses electrical energy?

If they are getting stuck, prompt them to look around the classroom or to think about different subjects and the specific rooms that go with them.

Step 3

Looking at our list, what things are switched on all the time? Circle these things. Do they need to be on all the time? Or are they left on because it is convenient?

Step 4

That's a lot of devices and appliances using energy. Why would we want to reduce our energy usage?

Learning Extension: Ask students to do a think-pair-share to consider how reducing energy usage will make an impact. Ask them to consider the three pillars of sustainability (environmental, social, economic) at three different levels, our school, our wider community and our planet as a whole. They can use the student worksheet to note down their ideas.

Find Out: Conducting Our Energy Audit

Step 1

Today, we’re going to collect data on our school’s electricity usage, identify where it is being wasted and where we could make improvements to the system to save electricity. Show students a map of your school. If you don’t have one available, we recommend using Google Maps on satellite view. Alternatively, many councils have detailed satellite maps available. Looking at this map, which areas/rooms use electricity? Answers might include:

classrooms
science lab
media room
art room
staff room
office
library
hall/gym
toilets
storerooms
sickbay
outdoor areas
principal’s office

Step 2

Assign students to groups of 2 or 3 for the audit and divide the rooms among the groups as evenly as possible (combining a number of smaller rooms if necessary). If your school has a number of rooms that are very similar (e.g. a classroom), just assign a group to one of these rooms and multiply energy data for one room by the total number of similar rooms. Mark on your map which groups are responsible for which rooms.

MANAGER

The manager is in charge of any equipment the group needs and is responsible for collecting and returning the equipment. In addition, the manager needs to tell the teacher if any equipment is broken or missing.

DIRECTOR

The director is in charge of ensuring the project stays on track and that all group members understand what is expected from each step of the project. The director also needs to offer encouragement and guidance but is not the group leader (this responsibility falls to all students).

RECORDER

The recorder is in charge of record keeping and identifying any points of data that might have been missed. The recorder needs to make sure the data is accurate and usable.

Step 3

Make sure each group has the resources they need (energy audit worksheet, a clipboard, and a pen). Talk through the student worksheet. Make sure students are aware that they need to:

Move around the school and collect data on electrical usage in each room they have been allocated.
Return to the classroom and calculate the kilowatt-hours used by the appliances and the room in total.
Use this information to calculate the greenhouse emissions for their area.

Remind students of the time allocation they have and the expectations for when they are outside the classroom.

Step 3

As student groups return to the classroom, prompt them to continue working through the student worksheet, to calculate the energy usage for their area and the subsequent greenhouse gas emissions.

Step 4

Record the data in a table as below, and as a class, calculate the energy usage for the whole school for a year.

Remember! If you only did 1 classroom as a sample, you will need to multiply that by the number of classrooms in the school.

Areas	Emissions














Total for whole school in a year:

Take Action: Recommendations

Step 1

Great, we’ve conducted our research, we have our data, and now it’s time to do something with it. From here, we need to analyse the data and create some recommendations for our school to reduce our energy usage. Let’s take a look at some other schools and organisations that are working to reduce electricity usage and improve efficiency.

Kokako Lodge Customer Story

Payment Plan funds largest solar energy system on an NZ school

Step 2

Using this as an example, let’s look at our school and see if we can apply any of the energy-saving measures that were discussed. In their groups, ask students to work through the student worksheet and identify potential energy-saving measures. Students will start by identifying which appliance/device uses the most electricity in their area and then choosing one to focus on. They may already be aware of a method to reduce the energy usage of this item, or they may need to start with some online research to see what opportunities or alternatives are out there. A good place to start this research is the Smart Ease Website, where they showcase energy-saving projects that they fund for schools and other organisations. From here, students can conduct further research into these options or look for other innovations in the energy-saving space.

Literacy Extension: Students could write an elevator pitch on their solution to present to the school’s financial staff or board members. You can share this factsheet on writing an elevator pitch with your students to help them get started!

Reflection

We have identified changes we can make at school. What are some changes we could make to save energy at home?

Conducting a Student Led School Energy Audit

Go to

Summary

Lesson guides and printables

In this lesson