This article explores how to make a home or building more eco-friendly and the financial benefits and tax incentives in Maine that come with reducing energy waste, increasing efficiency, and adding renewable solutions.
The incentives for federal and state tax credits are outlined, a downloadable guide for Maine is provided, and the tax forms are linked.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This article is short and easy to understand.
This article has a visual that shows many different ways to decrease energy waste and energy usage.
Additional Prerequisites
Students should know what a tax credit is.
Students should understand how emissions from energy use contribute to climate change.
Differentiation
This article could supplement a lesson on the American government's effectiveness at combating climate change.
After reading the article, the teacher could lead a classroom discussion about the Inflation Reduction Act, how this law tries to address climate change, and the political context this law exists in.
This article could enhance a lesson on different types of home-based renewable energies and why they are environmentally friendly.
This article could augment a classroom discussion on what incentivized Maine to create tax credits for home decarbonization and how this policy will impact different groups within the state.
Engineering classes could discuss the best types of insulation, how heat pumps work, and the difference between Energy Star appliances and other appliances.
Scientist Notes
This resource contains a guide to assist households in Maine to purchase eco-friendly products for their homes. These products are cost-effective and would help to reduce their carbon footprint. The links therein were reviewed and the resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
HS-ESS3-4 Evaluate or refine a technological solution that reduces impacts of human activities on natural systems.
ETS1: Engineering Design
HS-ETS1-3 Evaluate a solution to a complex real-world problem based on prioritized criteria and trade-offs that account for a range of constraints, including cost, safety, reliability, and aesthetics, as well as possible social, cultural, and environmental impacts.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Civics
D2.Civ.5.9-12 Evaluate citizens' and institutions' effectiveness in addressing social and political problems at the local, state, tribal, national, and/or international level.
Dimension 2: Economics
D2.Eco.1.9-12 Analyze how incentives influence choices that may result in policies with a range of costs and benefits for different groups.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Reading: Informational Text (K-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.10 By the end of grade 11, read and comprehend literary nonfiction in the grades 11-CCR text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. By the end of grade 12, read and comprehend literary nonfiction at the high end of the grades 11-CCR text complexity band independently and proficiently.
