Energy 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:
One chair for each person in the class
To do:
- Print out the 2 energy action sheets and tear each 'action' 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?