Project Learning Tree (PLT) is an award-winning environmental education program designed for teachers and other educators, parents, and community leaders working with youth from preschool through grade 12. “You’ll branch out and leaf a better educator!”
PLT also provides professional development training for educators.
NGSS Standards related to Energy
Here’s a nice list of formative assessment ideas we found online from Levy County School District in Florida. Teachers can use these approaches to check for student understanding and PD providers can use these with teachers to check for their understanding and also model how to implement these assessments.
For more on this, be sure to check out Page Keeley’s book, 75 Science Formative Assessments on her website, Uncovering Student Ideas. She has templates you can adapt for different types of assessments, plus a host of other resources.
BEETLES stands for “Better Environmental Education, Teaching, Learning & Expertise Sharing” and is based at the Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California at Berkeley. The site focuses on experiential learning approaches, primarily for field instructors and outdoor education, but also for classroom educators as well. You’ll find lessons and associated video segments that demonstrate the lessons that center. The lessons are centered around beetles as a science topic for discovery. Also note the great questioning strategies the facilitators use to foster deeper discussion.
The PhET online interactive simulations from the University of Colorado are free, research-based and research-validated, cover math and all the major sciences, and are translated into dozens of languages. The online teaching resources to support each simulation include a teacher’s guide from the PhET design team, plus classroom activities that clever teachers have already developed for a given simulation. Here is a short list of suggested resources on energy:
And a long-time favorite, John Travoltage–where you can make John “Travoltage’s” leg rub to build up static so that he gets shocked when touching a doorknob!
This interactive map created by ArcGIS shows global energy production and reserves by country, including coal production, oil production and reserves, and natural gas production and reserves for 1990 to 2014.
The Utah Energy & Minerals Education Initiative was launched in 2015 by the Governor’s Office of Energy Development (OED) and a variety of partner agencies, industry associations and other interested parties, all of whom shared the goal of advancing the public’s understanding of energy production and use.
To date, the Initiative has included K-12 curriculum development, scholarships for high school students, research funding and a Utah Energy & Minerals Days event hosted in conjunction with the annual Utah STEM Fest. As OED and its partners continue to make progress, expanding workforce development activities, public forums, and other forms of outreach and advocacy, this site will be a resource for all content, notices and news related to our education initiatives.
Currently, the site has lessons for grades 3-9 in science, social studies, and math. Current events and news are also featured
NREL(National Renewable Energy Lab) provides a variety of educational resources to help students, teachers, and parents educate their kids about renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies, including hands-on projects and curriculum suggestions for elementary school, middle school, and high school students as well as teachers.
Physics Front has reviewed and catalogued quality resources for K-12 teaching. This collection focuses on resources, lesson plans, activities, and websites in support of teaching concepts related to energy and other topics in physics.
STEM-Works provides resources in STEM learning and career opportunities. The site focuses on specific topics in STEM including a section on Wind Energy
The Energy