An excellent national resource is the energy efficiency and renewable
energy network of the US Department of Energy. Their Web site is: www.eere.energy.gov/
They specialize in renewable energy and energy efficiency in buildings
and transportation as well as the electric power industry. (also,
see Teacher resources, as they have a special section on kids, consumers,
ask an energy expert, newsletter subscriptions, and education in general).
A major resource in energy efficient building, which couples very with renewable energy is the BuildingAmerica.gov Web site: www.buildingamerica.gov At this Web site there is a list of the top 25 other Web sites for energy efficient buildings, which is a very large and deep resource for all aspects of energy efficiency. In addition to those resources for teachers, some of the government listed resources in previous sections of this web page will have specific teacher curricula and resources. Particularly that's true of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) — nrel.gov Web site. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has a section at its Web site, which must be searched (unfortunately) called "Learning about Renewables," which has a students' resources for high school and college students section. This site focuses on renewable energies, biomass, geothermal, solar energy and wind energy. There is also a NREL education office, which serves K through 20 students, which is atwww.nrel.gov/education/ This lists teacher programs, preservice teacher internships programs, science undergraduate laboratory internship programs, community college institutes of science and technology and a research participant program. There are also some competitive national middle school and high school progams such as the National Middle School Science Bowl, the Junior Solar Spread Hydrogen Fuel Cell competitions and the High School Science Bowl.
Another excellent American Web site, the American Solar Energy Society — www.ases.org has an educational resources for educators section on their Web site, with one section specifically dedicated to curriculum materials for K through 12 teachers. There are specific downloadable resources on:
•
global warming and climate change
• passive solar building design
• photovoltaics
• solar electricity
• solar cooking, and
• wind power.
Another excellent resource is the Rahus Institute at www.rahus.org. This is a small nonprofit foundation in California that has produced a DVD of the 2005 Solar Decathlon an event which is inspirational to students. It consists of a sponsorship of the US. Dept. of Energy in which colleges and universities in collaboration with their architecture and engineering departments and students, jointly build solar energy powered houses on the Mall in Washington DC and compete against each other in the fulfillment of 10 different variable performance aspects of those houses. The video is called "The Solar Decathlon" and is available from Cooperative Extension as well as the Rahus Institute at that Web site. |
