Site Guide: Energy

Explore resources and teaching materials from SERC projects and collaborators for teaching about energy in a variety of settings. These activities, course descriptions, visualizations, and tips/advice for teaching about energy can be used across the curriculum; whether you're interested in geoscience, economics, policy, social issues, climate, or sustainability, this site guide likely has something for you!

Jump down to: Visualizations | Workshops | Blogs | Related Site Guides

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Click the images above to browse teaching activities and course descriptions related to energy topics. Collections are contributed by faculty and may include service learning projects, writing assignments, field trips, course descriptions and syllabi.

General Collections & Resources

Go to http://cleanet.org/clean/literacy/energy/index.html

https://www.energy.gov/eere/education/energy-literacy-essential-principles-energy-education 'Teaching Energy Literacy' - This is a teacher's guide to the 2012 Energy Literacy principles released by the US Department of Energy. The energy literacy principles address energy as a physical quantity, energy in physical and biological systems, sources of energy, energy decisions, use of energy, and the effects of energy use on quality of life. These pages offer summaries of each principle, possible challenges for educators, suggested pedagogic approaches for each grade level and relevant teaching materials from the CLEAN reviewed collection.

Teaching about Energy in Geoscience Courses - From On the Cutting Edge, energy plays a big role in current climate science, as well as in policy and economics as it relates to climate change. This website contains course descriptions, an activity collection, visualizations, recommended books and websites, workshop outcomes and more.

Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) – Led by science education experts, the CLEAN Pathway project builds on the efforts of the Climate Literacy Network and the establishment of the Climate Literacy: Essential Principles of Climate Science to steward a broad collection of resources, including a hand-picked and extensively reviewed activity collection, that facilitate students, teachers, and citizens becoming climate literate and informed about "the climate's influence on you and society and your influence on climate."

Teaching about Energy - From the InTeGrate project, explore the abundant opportunities to incorporate sustainability themes into the classroom with tips for integrating energy concepts into the classroom along with example activities and courses. Energy topics are a natural fit with related themes in sustainability such as climate change, water, human population and policy. Energy concepts span the geosciences, engineering and technology, economics, policy and more.

Go to /integrate/teaching_materials/index.html

InTeGrate-developed Modules and Courses - InTeGrate-developed teaching materials are also available, such as a module about mineral resources and an online course about Energy and the Environment. These materials have been extensively reviewed and have been tested in the classroom. A number of materials are currently undergoing revision and will be linked as soon as they are available.

SENCER - The SENCER project offers a searchable collection of energy-related resources, including model courses, case studies, articles, and more.

Visualizations

Go to /NAGTWorkshops/energy/visuals.html

Energy Visualizations - These visualizations include videos, illustrations, maps, etc. that can support teaching about energy in the classroom. They involve fossil fuel formation and how fuels are converted to energy, resources about nuclear energy, and alternative energy.

Energy Balance Visualizations - A set of visualizations and supporting material that can be used effectively to teach students about the Earth's energy balance. Visualizations include simple animations, GIS-based maps, videos, as well as numerous illustrations and photos.

Oil Spills - Oil spills cause enormous amounts of damage to ocean and coastal ecosystems and the human populations that depend on them for subsistence, employment, and commerce. These resources speak to the effects of oil spills and aid educators in teaching about these catastrophic events.

Workshops

On the Cutting Edge Energy Workshops and Events - These workshops brought together geoscience educators to share their understanding about energy in the context of teaching and learning geoscience. The workshops also showcase approaches for teaching about energy and provided a forum to develop new educational materials.

Go to http://cleanet.org/clean/community/energyworkshop/index.html

Teaching Energy Awareness: Understanding Sources and Uses - An online workshop held April 11 - 12 and 18 - 19, 2011. This workshop was for undergraduate faculty who are interested in bringing energy-related topics into their courses, or who already teach about energy but may be looking for new approaches. This workshop was part of the CLEAN professional development series.

Go to /NAGTWorkshops/climatechange/webinar/index.html

On the Cutting Edge Climate and Energy Webinar and Book Club Series - This monthly series delved into emerging topics in the science of energy and climate and explored promising teaching approaches for these topics. Recordings of webinar presentations are available from the event pages.

CLEAN Workshops and Webinars - Part of their professional development series, the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness (CLEAN) project has held multiple online workshops aimed at undergraduate faculty and a webinar series aimed at middle and high school teachers. The workshops and webinars provided in-depth information on a variety of topics involving climate, energy, and sustainability and were designed to help faculty incorporated these issues into the classroom. The workshops produced materials that contribute to and expand upon resources in the CLEAN reviewed collection and webinar recordings are available.