Electrical engineering: Impacts of extreme weather on electricity supplies

Suitable for 14-19-year olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, STEM clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 engineering, physics and maths.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of Dr Anamika Dubey, an electrical engineer at Washington State University, USA. She is investigating how to increase the resilience of the electricity grid to prevent power outages during extreme weather events.

• This resource also contains an interview with Anamika and offers an insight into careers in electrical engineering. If your students have questions for Anamika, they can send them to her online. All they need to do is to go to the article online (see the Futurum link below), scroll down to the end and type in the question(s). Anamika will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Anamika’s research and challenges them to imagine the impact of a nationwide power outage on their own lives and on their country, and to consider which services they believe should be prioritised for receiving emergency power.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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