This article examines the implementation of high-efficiency heat pumps as a climate solution, conventional heating methods that they can replace, and how much increased adoption of them can reduce CO2 equivalent emissions.
Students will learn the financial implications, reduced carbon emissions, and implementation scenarios associated with high-efficiency heat pumps.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This article is well-rounded and considers many factors, including acknowledging that heat pumps can be expensive.
This article provides information on what makes a heat pump "high-efficiency."
Additional Prerequisites
It may benefit students to know about latent heat and refrigerants.
Students should understand climate change and how typical HVAC systems contribute to climate change.
Differentiation
Students can use this article and other building-related solutions, either linked in the reading or found on the Table of Solutions, for an informative essay on different methods of residential decarbonization.
To assess prior knowledge, the teacher can ask the class how they heat their homes before reading the article.
This article can enhance a classroom discussion on how governments could increase the adoption of high-efficiency heat pumps.
This article can support a lesson on the mechanical differences between heat pumps and conventional air conditioning systems.
Scientist Notes
This resource provides a detailed analysis of high efficiency heat pumps and how they could replace coal, gas, and oil boilers, low efficient air conditioners, electric resistance heaters and conventional HVAC systems. There is a growing demand for adopting this technology as the most suitable measure to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Datasets used in modeling the different scenarios and pathways have been verified, and this resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
HS-ESS3-2 Evaluate competing design solutions for developing, managing, and utilizing energy and mineral resources based on cost-benefit ratios.
HS-ESS3-4 Evaluate or refine a technological solution that reduces impacts of human activities on natural systems.
ETS1: Engineering Design
HS-ETS1-1 Analyze a major global challenge to specify qualitative and quantitative criteria and constraints for solutions that account for societal needs and wants.
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: Economics
D2.Eco.3.9-12 Analyze the ways in which incentives influence what is produced and distributed in a market system.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Reading: Informational Text (K-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.2 Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective summary of the text.
Reading: Science & Technical Subjects (6-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.6 Analyze the author's purpose in providing an explanation, describing a procedure, or discussing an experiment in a text, defining the question the author seeks to address.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.11-12.4 Determine the meaning of symbols, key terms, and other domain-specific words and phrases as they are used in a specific scientific or technical context relevant to grades 11-12 texts and topics.
