8. Efficiency and Conservation
Household energy use accounts for a significant portion of the nation's energy use; therefore, an important aspect of energy conservation is having buildings that are energy efficient. In this activity, ...

9. Hybrid and Electric Cars
This module reviews the history of the automobile and its varied power sources, culminating in the latest versions of hybrid and electric cars.

7. Better Ways to Illuminate
In this module, students compare three types of lamps that are used for lighting: incandescent, compact fluorescent (CFL) and light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Students collect data on the amount of heat and light ...

5. Passive Designs
In this module, we consider how the actual design and placement of buildings can be important considerations for energy efficiency, thereby optimizing winter heating and summer cooling needs. One of the simplest ...

Capstone Project
For those teaching the modules as an entire course, we provide a capstone summary assessment activity. This activity is designed to incorporate scaffolding of the material, to use the gained knowledge to do ...

Action to Enhance Sustainability
This assignment is a 10-hour, out-of-class project where each student designs and carries out an action plan to enhance sustainability. Students select from a large suite of alternative actions, most of which can be quantified for reductions in CO2 and energy consumption, as well as in dollar savings.

Energy Gallery Walk
This is a cooperative learning activity using the Gallery Walk Strategy (strategy from the Starting Point Gallery Walk web pages) to enrich student understanding of the complex nature of solving our nation's ...

How Much Energy is on my Plate?
This activity is part of the community collection of teaching materials on climate and energy topics. This activity was submitted by faculty as part of the CLEAN Energy Workshop, held in April, 2011. This activity ...

The Lifestyle Project
This three-week project challenges students to learn about environmental alternatives by modifying their own lifestyles. Throughout the project, students reduce their impacts on the environment by changing the way in which they live from day to day.

From Grid to Home
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 ...

Calculation of your personal carbon footprint
This worksheet walks the students through the steps for calculating their personal carbon footprint. Additionally it helps them consider options for reducing their carbon footprint and the potential costs of those ...

Comparing Carbon Calculators
Carbon calculators, no matter how well intended as tools to help measure energy footprints, tend to be black boxes and can produce wildly different results, depending on the calculations used to weigh various ...

The Lifestyle Project at Vancouver Island University, British Columbia
The project is used in two courses, both with the theme of understanding the environmental implications of our use of energy, exploring personal energy use, and learning about the types of energy available to Canadians. One is a face-to-face course for Education majors, the other is an on-line course available to all upper-level (3rd and 4th year) students.

Home Energy Audit/Retrofits
Home energy audit/retrofits allow students to apply thermodynamic principles to planning and executing a retrofit to make an existing home more energy efficient.

Resource Usage Project and Journal
Students keep track of one resource (water, electricity, gas, etc.) they use for a 7-day period. They summarize their usage patterns, give opinions, and get some self-realization about their habits.

Campus Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory
Students conduct a greenhouse gas emission inventory for their college or university. Students analyze findings and present information to the college or university community. -

Petroleum Depletion by Inquiry
This is a draft of a guided inquiry activity to help students become aware of the problem of petroleum depletion or peak oil. Students use existing data to make projections of future discoveries and consumption. It ...

Cost Effectiveness of Increased Fuel Efficiency
In this example students examine and critique an argument which implies that it is not cost effective to pay for an automobile with increased fuel efficiency. Using a few reasonable assumptions shows that some of ...

The Lifestyle Project at the University of Redlands
This three-week project begins with a measurement of "baseline" consumptive behavior followed by two weeks of working to reduce the use of water, energy, high-impact foods, and other materials. The ...

Habitat for Humanity Build Day
Teaching sustainability through Habitat for Humanity.