Before educating students and others on how to initiate energy efficiency projects at home, it’s helpful to make sure that you have the right information yourself! See below for educational resources and programs that can help students learn about proper energy use.
Resources to use with students
NEED.org’s Saving Energy at Home and School Teacher Guide: Using this guide, Students explore energy sources, efficiency, and conservation with hands-on activities for the classroom and home environments. Each student receives a Home Energy Efficiency Kit that corresponds with the classroom lessons, and allows students to share what they have learned with their families.
Save on Energy’s Kid’s Learning Center: Learn the ins and outs of saving energy with Nico! Explore energy saving guides, information on how to live the green life, find picks for back-to-school season and more!
ENERGY.gov’s Building Our Energy Future: Teaching Students the Significance of Energy Efficiency:Provides fact sheets, case studies and more to help teach students the significance of energy efficiency.
Click here for more educational resources from Energy.gov.
Energy.gov Energy Saver: The website contains smooth visual charts and graphs that not only provide helpful tips on how to save energy but also explain energy concepts that make it easy for all readers to understand.
Visit the Energy Saver page for more information. Topics that the infographics provide information about include:
ENERGY STAR KIDS: This interactive website provides lessons plans, curriculums, activities and more that teachers can use to instruct students on how to save energy at home and why doing so is important.
EIA’s Energy Kids: Contains a wide variety of resources including games, activities, definitions, information on the history of energy and much more.
Alliance to Save Energy’s Education Website: Provides helpful case studies and other resources on how schools use energy and what can be done to improve their energy efficiency.
Terms & Definitions: Have your students start memorizing energy efficiency lingo with definitions from the E-Conservation website.
Educational Programs
Look for clean energy and energy efficiency programs like the ones below that offer free workshops and training events:
NC Cooperative Extension Home Energy Management Program: This program was created by the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service with funding from the State Energy Office to inform and educate North Carolina consumers about ways to both reduce residential energy use and increase energy efficiency in the home. This project is designed to educate and empower consumers to be proactive in reducing their home energy consumption and in saving money through no-and low-cost energy efficiency measures, behavioral changes and home retrofits. The Consumer Energy Education Project has been active since March 2005.
See the program’s YouTube channel for energy workshop clips.
US Green Building Council, North Carolina Chapter’s Green Schools Initiative: USGBC NC has developed a strategy for developing the next generation of sustainability leaders. Through 3 key focus areas: Curriculum, Community and Career, we provide support and education to students from kindergarten to college. This initiative provides ample opportunities to engage chapter volunteers throughout the school year. The four programs collectively known as Generation Green are Green Apple Day of Service, the Environmental Stewardship Challenge (ESC), the Natural Talent Design Competition and the Rob Eggers Memorial Scholarships.
Duke Energy’s Energy Efficiency in Schools Program: Duke Energy is proud to partner with The National Theatre for Children (NTC) to promote conservation and energy-efficiency education for grades K-8 in its service communities. This organization uses professional actors to teach students about energy efficiency through engaging, comical and informative live theater sketches. Each performance also includes grade-appropriate workbooks for each student, comprehensive teacher guides, internet activities and classroom posters. After the show, students are encouraged to have their parents sign up to receive a free home Energy Efficiency Kit to continue reinforcing the importance of energy conservation, and to help them understand how it can translate into practical applications in their homes. Schools in Duke Energy territory can sign up for performances. Go online to www.nationaltheatre.com and click “schedule a show”. Call 800.858.3999 ext. 1. Email schools@nationaltheatre.com.
Clean Energy Durham: We offer a free one-hour workshop on how hot and cold air flows in and out of a typical house and how to keep from wasting energy. The workshop is held in a home and neighbors are invited. We offer these workshops at a time that is convenient for you and your neighbors. In the workshop, everyone will learn four easy and inexpensive techniques for saving energy. We train neighbors to teach these techniques to their neighbors. We offer a free short workshop on no-cost, low-cost ways to save energy, understand your energy bill, and track your energy use. We give neighbors a kit of materials to use in passing their training on to their neighbors. Contact us today to set up your workshop!
Alliance for Climate Education (ACE): This national organization, which has a branch in North Carolina, is dedicated to preparing high school students for futures in advocating against climate change. Students attend weekly meetings, work on team projects and even go on field trips with other teens throughout the state to learn about energy issues and what kind of skills they need to effectively fight climate change.
See the ACE website for more information!
SAHF EZ Retrofit: A free, do-it-yourself Excel-based audit tool that gives multifamily property owners and managers an easy way to identify cost-effective energy and water efficiency upgrades. EZ Retrofit runs in Excel and streamlines the building review process. After inputting information about your current systems, EZ Retrofit recommends improvements to help you maximize savings. For each recommendation, you receive detailed costs and savings estimates. Plus, you get a graphic visualization of retrofit savings and a customized audit report for your building that you can download and share with colleagues.
SAHF Operations & Maintenance (O&M) Training: Effective operations and maintenance (O&M) is one of the most cost-effective approaches for generating and maintaining energy and water savings. The resources developed for and with the SAHF members are freely available to all multifamily owners interested in adopting O&M practices that support the operation of high quality, energy and water efficient buildings.
SAHF Resident Engagement: Resident engagement not helps to meet our (SAHF) 20% reduction goal, it also strengthens the sense of community at our properties and helps residents build lifelong skills to manage utility costs. To this end, SAHF developed a Resident Engagement Toolkit and is piloting the approach through intensive implementation at a SAHF member property. SAHF is also a supporting partner to the STEM Energy and Economic Development (SEED) initiative, and is supporting the use of the SAHF Resident Engagement toolkit as part of that initiative.