• This lesson lets students explore information about energy efficiency, perform an energy audit of their classroom, and make recommendations about how to help reduce climate emissions through energy conservation and reducing energy waste. 
• The educator guide provides discussion questions, class activities, and student readings. 

Positives

• The podcast presents the challenges and benefits of implementing more energy efficiency measures for homes and commercial buildings in a simple format.
• The classroom energy audit will get students thinking about their everyday actions and help them understand how big of an impact they can make each day.
  

Additional Prerequisites

• This resource uses terms related to economic principles, such as incentives, upfront and downstream costs, and the grid. 
  

Differentiation

• To see the impact of various climate solutions, look at this table of solutions provided by Project Drawdown and click on Scenario 1 twice to rank them.
  
• Ethics and social studies classes could discuss why property owners might choose to implement or avoid energy-efficient technology in their (or their tenants') homes. Students could consider the following questions:
  • How would a property owner benefit (financially or otherwise) from a building that is energy efficient?
  • Would an energy-efficient building attract more long-term tenants? Why or why not?
  • Is it better to force property owners to adopt energy-efficient building methods or provide incentives? Why?
• Other resources on this topic include this Khan Academy video on energy conservation, this video on sustainable housing, and this article on the powerful impact of household actions on climate change.

This resource addresses the listed standards. To fully meet standards, search for more related resources.