Guide to Teaching Renewable
Energy and Global Warming
This online guide is designed to make it easy for Massachusetts teachers to find useful curriculum materials, activities, and resources for teaching students about renewable energy and global warming. To use the guide, simply click on the topic links to the right.
 |
ATTENTION TEACHERS!See Massachusetts Solar Energy in Action Through this new resource, students and teachers can learn how different solar installations in Massachusetts perform on a daily basis. You can also compare the systems and observe the impact of different weather conditions, seasons, and times of day. |
Up to now, many teachers have had difficulty finding outstanding materials about solar energy, wind power, fuel cells, and other renewable energy topics. When they came across a curriculum or collection of activities, they often spent long hours trying to assess whether the materials would be interesting and appropriate for their students. This guide short-circuits that laborious process by highlighting those educational materials that are aligned with the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks. It describes and assesses the most useful materials available. The more than 120 materials described in this guide relate to the following frameworks and specific strands within those frameworks:
Science and Technology/Engineering (Grades 6 - 11)
• Earth and Space Science
• Life Sciences
• Physical Sciences
• Technology/Engineering
Mathematics (Grades 5 - 12)
History and Social Science• Number Sense and Operation
• Patterns, Relations, and Algebra
• Measurement
• Data Analyses, Statistics, and Probability
• Geometry
• Economics (discipline) (Grades 6 and 12)
How the Guide Is Organized
The selected educational materials are grouped in topics under Renewable Energy or Global Warming. A click on a topic link provides you with a list of the selected educational materials. An "informational page" about each educational material is provided and includes:
• topics the resource covers
• the source of the information in the resource
• the website or postal address
• the grade level(s) the information in the resource is designed for
• the learning strategies involved in the lesson(s)
• the Framework Learning Standards the resource meets
• the cost of the teaching materials (most are free)
• a brief description and assessment of the resource
The websites you access through the links from this site include teaching guides, classroom activities, lesson plans, follow-up questions, games, and teaching kits.
The Project Team
This guide was produced for the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative's Renewable Energy Trust by the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Institute (STEM) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass).
Primary authors for UMass:
• Morton M. Sternheim, Director, STEM
• Andrew Rice, math education graduate student
• Stephen Schneider, Professor of Astronomy
• Robert Snyder, retired chemistry and physics teacher, Brookline High School
• Tarin Weiss, science education post-doctoral fellow, former Longmeadow Middle School science teacher
• Shelly Whalen, science education graduate student
The following teachers assisted UMass in reviewing the materials:
• Kathi Chlanda , science and math teacher, South Hadley Middle School
• Mary Farrin , social studies teacher, South Hadley Middle School
• Thomas Gralinski , technology teacher, Amherst Regional High School
• James Kohrman , technology teacher, Northampton High School
• Lois Moulton, science teacher, Eaglebrook School
• Kate Paterson, science teacher, Smith Academy, Hatfield
• Norman Price, science teacher, Amherst Regional Middle School
The following people helped locate materials:
• Chris Mason, Northeast Sustainable Energy Association
• Will Snyder, UMass Extension
• Frank Keimeg, Geosciences Department, UMass
• Michael Arquin, Wright Center for Science Education, Tufts University
• Julie Johnson and Ted Watt at the Hitchcock Center for the Environment
• Naka Ishii, UMass library
• Stephanie Ciccarello, Amherst Climate Action Campaign
UMass used the following documents during the initial search for suitable materials:
"Energy for Environmental Stewardship," Will Snyder and the 1994 National 4-H Energy Education Review Team. This guide is out of print, but it is in the public domain and may be duplicated freely if you locate a copy.
"Excellence in Environmental Education Guidelines for Learning (K-12)," North American Association for Environmental Education, http://www.naaee.org/npeee/learner_guidelines.php
"Energy Education Materials: Guidelines for Excellence," North American Association for Environmental Education, http://www.naaee.org/npeee/materials.php