Be wise and energise
Be wise and energise
Energise your class with these activities before you visit our EcoCentre for your awesome workshop!
Programme outline – One hour
Students will be introduced to the concept of energy and the different forms in which it exists. They will explore the different ways it is produced and used before competing in groups to see who can produce the most energy from a solar cell. Following this will be a discussion about electricity use in the home, where students will investigate our award-winning EcoCentre to find actions that they can take to reduce energy waste in their home. They will then choose just one of these actions to commit to taking home and introducing into their daily lives.
Some pre-workshop activities for your class
Have your students investigate the following questions:
What is energy?
What are the different forms that energy can come in?
Why do we need energy?
What are the main sources of energy that we use in our daily lives?
Go outside and use the five senses to investigate the different forms of energy present. Think about things like light, sound, heat, wind, and what their sources are.
Draw an energy map of the classroom - using a key to show the different ways that energy is used i.e. following where electrical cords come from the wall to appliances, or where light might travel from the bulbs to the ground.
Find out which power company supplies the school and investigate how that company generates its electricity.
(For older students) What are the Laws of Energy? What do they mean?
Some post-workshop activities for your class
Investigate different ways of generating electricity that might be used in the future. Some examples include tidal, fusion, or hydrogen. Come up with your own idea to generate electricity and make a presentation about how it might work.
Take a look at the history of how we’ve used energy. What was the original source of electricity? How did changes to the way we use energy change how we live our lives?
Give your day an energy audit. Write a list of all of the things you did throughout the day that used energy.
Have your students investigate the following questions:
What is energy?
What are the different forms that energy can come in?
Why do we need energy?
What are the main sources of energy that we use in our daily lives?
Design an awareness campaign promoting one activity that students can do to conserve energy. Create posters, develop web ads, or write and produce your own advertisement.
Create an energy map of New Zealand, by taking a simple map of the country and marking down the following (using a key):
Everywhere that electricity is generated
The biggest users of electricity.
Are they just cities?
Major transmission lines
Use the energy map to decide where renewable sources of electricity generation could be used. Where would the best areas be for wind turbines, solar panels, or one of the new sources of electricity suggested by the class in the first activity?
+ Curriculum Links
- Science (Nature of Science + Living World + Planet Earth and Beyond + Physical World + Material World)
- Social Studies
- Technology (Technological Practice, Nature of Technology, Technological Knowledge)
- Health and Physical Education (Healthy Communities and Environments)
+ Key Competencies
- Managing Self
- Participating and Contributing
- Using languages, symbols, and text
- Thinking
- Relating to others
+ Build your vocabulary - what do these terms mean?
- Transmission
- Insulation
- Induction
- Transformer
- Biofuel
- Photovoltaic
- Kilowatt-hour
- AC
- DC
- Turbine