Energy means different things to different people. Energy to cook with and heat our homes, energy that powers our mobile devices, energy from the Sun, energy flow through food chains, energy bills we have to pay, energy drinks to keep us awake, toddlers with too much energy and the lack of energy we feel after a hard week’s teaching.
There are just as many ways to teach primary pupils about energy and inspire them to want to know more.
1. Share the figures about energy
The numbers around energy consumption are so huge they are a great way to make an impact on pupils.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), humans use around 14 billion toes of energy globally every year (a toe is a unit of energy consumption; it stands for tonne of oil equivalent. One toe is the amount of energy released from burning one tonne of crude oil). In the UK, an estimated £14.95 million-worth of energy is wasted per day from leaving lights on, according to Utility Design. This produces 37,440,000kg of CO2 - equivalent to 62 around-the-world flights.
Such staggering numbers also provide a great base for maths lessons, interpreting data from tables and graphs, drawing new graphs, calculating averages and percentages and working with units. You can explore global energy data from enerdata and the International Energy Agency.
You could also register free for The Pod and download the Energy Information Pack, which has lots of ideas for exploring energy use and wastage with your class.
2. Calculate carbon footprints
Letting children calculate their own carbon footprint is a great way to encourage them to learn about all the factors that influence how much CO2 their lifestyle produces and there are online tools that will let them do this. The WWF calculator asks about food, travel, home and habits, for example, while the Parkcitygreen calculator asks about habits and behaviours.
3. Plan to help the planet
Once your class have calculated their individual carbon footprints and discovered the various factors that affect them, they can research ways to reduce their impact on the planet. The Pod has some excellent posters you can download and there are great ideas at NASA Climate Kids.
Or you could get your school to take part in The Pod’s Switch Off Fortnight, from 18-29 November. There are a raft of curriculum-linked resources available for teachers as part of this campaign that can be used to get the whole school working together on activities with the goal of saving energy.
4. Debate energy issues
Energy production, consumption and waste provide excellent context for debates. Give pupils a motion, such as “This house believes that we should all be using renewable energy” or “This house believes that diesel and petrol cars should be banned”, and get opposing sides to research the issues, before holding a formal debate. I always use the Oxford style of debate to give everyone an opportunity to have their say.
5. Research energy sources
Energy in the UK is generated from a variety of sources, from coal and gas to nuclear, wind, solar and other renewable sources. Why not ask students to research these different sources of energy and present the pros and cons of each?
This animated game from Wonderville is a good way to help children to understand the importance of having different energy sources for different situations. Power the UK is another interactive game that will test pupils’ knowledge of different energy sources.
6. Let the Sun shine
A tiny amount of the energy we have access to on Earth comes from geothermal activity (heat from the Earth’s core) and from nuclear fission - but the rest can all be traced back to the Sun.
For example, we get a lot of our energy from burning fossil fuels. These are formed over millions of years from the buried remains of living things. Animals get energy from the food they eat, which, if you follow the food chain back, originates from plants, which get their energy from the Sun. So burning fossil fuels releases energy from the Sun that was trapped underground millions of years ago.
Challenge students to work in groups to create energy pathways to show how energy from the Sun is responsible for wind power, hydroelectricity and biomass electricity production.
7. Demonstrate energy conservation
The law of conservation of energy states that energy can be neither created nor destroyed, but it can be transformed from one form to another or transferred from one object to another. This is an abstract concept for children to grasp, so it’s good to use some concrete examples to explain it.
Place a toy car on a flat surface and roll another car towards it so it hits it end-on. You can then explain that the energy from the moving car has been transferred to the stationary one causing it to move.
Or place a ball on a table top; it has gravitational potential energy. Then tilt the table so the ball rolls off and falls; the gravitational potential energy is transformed into kinetic energy.
This PhET simulation from the University of Colorado, shows how energy is conserved on a theme park ride and gives a clear representation of what happens to the energy at different points on the ride.
8. Find out where energy goes
There are nine energy stores, including sound, chemical, light, nuclear, gravitational potential and kinetic. Energy moves between these stores to allow us to see, hear, move things and heat things up. These teaching resources on energy forms, transformation and transfer will help to introduce pupils to different types of energy and how it moves through systems.
Developing a basic understanding of the concepts of energy is essential for children in primary school as they work through the science curriculum. These ideas will give pupils a solid introduction to the subject.
Paul Tyler is a teacher and science coordinator at Mearns Primary School in East Renfrewshire. He is a Primary Science Teaching Trust fellow and active member of the Association for Science Education. He also produces a monthly Topical Science Update for schools
