This downloadable e-book addresses misinformation surrounding solar energy and presents details and facts about solar panels, solar jobs, and the importance of solar to stop climate change, citing California as a United States leader in solar energy.
Students will learn about the cost of buying and installing solar panels, how long solar panels last, green careers, and how effective renewable energy solutions can be.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This easy-to-understand e-book is a great way to introduce students to the benefits of solar energy.
This resource also includes a list of facts that students can post to their social media to spread the word about solar.
The text invites readers to engage with the Climate Reality Project in their city to become more involved in local climate action.
Additional Prerequisites
To download the e-book, students and teachers need to create a free account.
The e-book focuses primarily on photovoltaic solar.
Before reading the text, students should be familiar with terms like renewable, costs, and Big Polluters.
At the end of the text, the authors ask for donations.
Differentiation
Although only briefly mentioned in the text, energy storage is critical to expanding solar energy and should be discussed in more detail in class.
Have students consider what factors (e.g., costs, special interests, etc.) prevent more countries and cities from investing more in solar.
Have students investigate passive solar solutions that use light or heat from the sun to reduce energy usage in buildings.
This resource can be used in economics classes during lessons about how energy generation impacts the economy and in history classes during lessons about how the use of different energy sources has changed over time and why.
For connections to math or geography classes, this other resource provides quantitative data about solar power generation in different countries.
Scientist Notes
The resource is a 35-page e-book highlighting the facts about solar energy. Through the pages, the reader is walked through how powerful solar energy could be to help combat climate change. The economics, mechanics, durability, and job growth associated with solar power are also discussed. The e-book also includes suggestions on how the reader can get involved. The material is well sourced and 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.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
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.
Dimension 4: Taking Informed Action
D4.6.9-12 Use disciplinary and interdisciplinary lenses to understand the characteristics and causes of local, regional, and global problems; instances of such problems in multiple contexts; and challenges and opportunities faced by those trying to address these problems over time and place.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Reading: Informational Text (K-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.2 Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.6 Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribute to the power, persuasiveness or beauty of the text.
