From Grid to Home

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Marie Johnson - US Military Academy, Jonathan Hoffman - University of Wyoming, Lisa Gardiner - UCAR

Author Profiles

This activity has been reviewed by 2 review processes (view details)

This activity has been selected for inclusion in the CLEAN collection.
This activity has been extensively reviewed for inclusion in the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network's collection of educational resources. For information the process and the collection, see http://cleanet.org/clean/about/selected_by_CLEAN.
This activity was selected for the On the Cutting Edge Reviewed Teaching Collection

This activity has received positive reviews in a peer review process involving five review categories. The five categories included in the process are
- Scientific Accuracy
- Alignment of Learning Goals, Activities, and Assessments
- Pedagogic Effectiveness
- Robustness (usability and dependability of all components)
- Completeness of the ActivitySheet web page
For more information about the peer review process itself, please see https://serc.carleton.edu/teachearth/activity_review.html.

Initial Publication Date: June 2, 2009 | Reviewed: October 22, 2012 (see revision history: 3 events)

Summary

This one-period classroom activity is designed to have students analyze energy use, cost, and source patterns from household to regional scales and relate these patterns to CO₂ emissions. This idea was generated at the Teaching Energy Workshop.

Greenhouse gas emissions, Efficiency and Energy Conservation | Middle (6-8), High School (9-12), College Introductory

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Context

Audience

Grades 6 - 20
This activity can be adapted for various levels.

Skills and concepts that students must have mastered

Understanding of Excel (or could do graphing by hand with younger students)
Basic math skills for calculations

How the activity is situated in the course

Stand alone exercise or as introduction to the Lifestyle Project

Goals

Content/concepts goals for this activity

Analyze energy source, usage, and cost by region of US
Compare household energy use to regional norms
Calculate household CO₂ emissions based on electricity source
Discuss ways to reduce electrical footprint

Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity

Interpretation of tabular and graphical data
Ability to analyze energy use patterns

Other skills goals for this activity

Communication via writing and oral presentation

Description of the activity/assignment

Students use their household electric bills and available online data sets describing US regional electricity use, cost, and source to explore household energy use on personal, regional and national scales.

Determining whether students have met the goals

Students will create bar charts to summarize the regional data, participate in a discussion of how their electric bills compare to the regional average and the possible reasons for variation, and calculate their CO₂ emissions and write about how to reduce their electric use.

More information about assessment tools and techniques.

Teaching materials and tips

Activity Description/Assignment: Grid to Home Worksheet (Microsoft Word 312kB May19 09)

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Instructors Notes:
Solution Set:

Other Materials

Grid to Home Dataset (Excel 19kB May19 09)

Supporting references/URLs

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a
Average Monthly Electric Bill by Sector, Census Division, and State 2007, from the Energy Information Administration.

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