Energy usage in our everyday lives

Aims:

• To encourage students to think about the ways in which they use energy in their everyday lives;
• directly e.g. through switching on a light or turning on a kettle
• indirectly e.g. through the transport of their food from other parts of the world or through manufacturing of electronic equipment
• To get students to think about ways of conserving energy

You will need:

• Energy Action Sheet 1: Energy savers
• Energy Action Sheet 2: Energy wasters
• One chair for each person in the class

To do:

• Print out the 2 energy action sheets and tear each 'action' off into strips.
• Place these strips in a container.
• Invite participants to sit round in a circle on their chairs - make sure there is nothing on the ground in the circle.
• Invite one person to pick a strip and stand in the middle of the circle.
• Remove this student's chair, so that there is one more student in the group than chairs.
• Ask the person to read out the 'action' on their strip.
• All the students in the class who have ALSO participated in that activity at some stage in their lives, must change seats.
• The student who is 'on' must try and reach one of the spare seats, leaving one person standing in the middle to continue on the activity.
• Continue with the activity until all strips have been used up.

Follow up:

• Each positive strip has a corresponding negative strip. Ask the positives and negatives to find each other and form teams. Following this, pose these questions for a brainstorm session with your class:
• How is energy being used in the action both directly and indirectly?
• Each 'action' shows a way of wasting energy and a way of saving energy. How could some of the actions be made more energy efficient?