NEED Curriculum Packet

Any educator can become a part of NEED’s dynamic network of schools across the nation participating in innovative energy education programs. NEED educators receive a 2021-2022 NEED Curriculum Packet; e-newsletters; invitations to NEED conferences, workshops, and the Youth Energy Conference and Awards Program; and the opportunity to personalize classroom programs by accessing materials on the NEED website. Teachers can download all curriculum guides and supplemental materials in NEED’s library for free from NEED’s online store and website. NEED Curriculum Packets are provided by sponsors to all educators who attend NEED workshops. Each packet includes a sampling of NEED’s favorite materials. Check out the awesome activities and new additions listed on this page and on page 7!

ENERGY INFOBOOKS

NEED’s Energy Infobooks are provided in primary, elementary, intermediate, and secondary reading levels. The guides provide background and basic information on the sources of energy, electricity, transportation, conservation and efficiency, and consumption. The Infobooks can be used in the classroom as nonfiction text support for many NEED activities. Class sets of the elementary, intermediate, and secondary versions are available. The primary version of the guide is designed for teachers to read aloud to students. The Infobooks are revised every year to provide complete, up-to-date information. Infobooks are also available on NEED’s website as individual factsheets, and as e-publications. Download our new and improved Energy Infobook Activities to support these great text-based resources. Head to www.NEED.org/need-students/energy-infobooks/ for digital versions.

ENERGY GAMES AND ICEBREAKERS

This guide contains entertaining games and activities that serve as excellent introductions to an energy unit, or fantastic formative assessment tools to use throughout a unit or as review activities. Games include Electric Connections, Energy Chants, Energy Roundup, Energy Bingo, Energy Web Game, Candy Collector, and more.

Energy House is a classic NEED activity, used in workshops and a favorite in classrooms for several decades! The original design of the activity asks students to design a simple house using cardboard and insulate it using a variety of real and representative insulation materials. Students will test the insulation capacity of their homes to see how well they can hold temperature under various conditions. This collection, or village, of Energy House activities includes a few of the popular adaptations and extensions of the basic design developed by NEED or shared with us by teachers who use it regularly. Depending on your students and your energy content, you can use these activities to create a village of energy houses by having each group focus on a different adaptation and concept or have your students hit the specific house design project that meets your needs. The various different versions explore the insulation challenges in multifamily dwellings, showcase electric circuitry and wiring in homes, how to incorporate passive and active solar energy into home design, and demonstrate how a building’s surfaces and landscaping can impact its temperature and the temperature of its surroundings.

ENERGY CAREERS EXCURSION

Students often have a tough time understanding just how many career options exist in the world around them beyond doctor, nurse, lawyer, teacher, firefighter, and engineer. The energy industry employs more than 6.7 million Americans, and that number is expected to grow, while job types are expected to expand in their diversity. Careers in the energy industry account for just under 10% of all the new jobs in the U.S. This sampler is back again with some new activities that aim to expose students to the many specialized career options and job opportunities in the energy industry, and how even the most general career paths can be involved in bringing energy and electricity to the world around us. These activities make excellent additions to any energy unit, and are great for reinforcing soft skills and career-ready skills. Looking for more workforce and career focused units? Check out page 35 for a few of our career and technology units on solar, electricity, and hydropower.

CLIMATE COMPILATION

Students can easily see how energy consumption can affect their bank accounts, but what about how it affects our environment? The terms carbon dioxide, greenhouse gases, global warming, and climate change are becoming regular features in news articles and segments. This suite of hands-on, critical thinking, and math-savvy activities aim to help students to digest each of the terms and understand how the consumption of energy sources relates to each. Students first explore the behaviors of carbon dioxide in “The Properties of CO2” activity. “Greenhouse in a Beaker” allows students to see how greenhouse gases, like CO2, act in our atmosphere through the use of common lab equipment. “Can I Really Fry an Egg on the Sidewalk” introduces students to the heat island effect, a growing concern surrounding climate change that incorporates discussions of social and health sciences. Finally, in “Road Trip”, students are able to attribute a carbon impact to their transportation choices, as they choose a vehicle to take cross-country. These activities can be found in several places throughout NEED’s energy sources curriculum, and are mainstays in our climate science curriculum.

See page 24 for more information on NEED’s climate-related guides.

ELECTRIC VEHICLES AND THE GRID

As the world looks to combat the effects of climate change, transportation has become one of the key focal points for making changes. In the U.S., most of our transportation is fueled by fossil fuels (gasoline, diesel, and natural gas). These fuels must undergo combustion in a vehicle’s engine to provide the energy needed. Combustion produces, or emits, carbon dioxide as a byproduct. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. One of the many proposed solutions to this challenge is shifting towards electric vehicles (EVs), and in doing so also shifting our power pool to rely more on renewable energy sources. The activities in this sampler are designed to introduce your students to EVs, electricity storage, and the grid system as a whole. Students will begin to identify the challenges our transportation and electric grid systems will need to overcome in order to enable a shift towards more renewable-powered EVs.

See page 26 for more information on NEED’s transportation guides.