Enhancing Energy Literacy through Place-based Learning: Using the School Building to Link Energy Use with Earth Systems

学生对地球系统和人类建造系统的能源概念的理解需要解决与资源使用和管理，能源，气候影响和可持续性相关的当前社会问题。这些关系对学生来说是具有挑战性的，在许多科学课程框架中也不发达。这个探索性的项目将设计，试点，并评估一个10周，能源素养课程单元的一个名为能源和你的环境（EYE）计划。在EYE课程中，学生将学习自己学校建筑中的能源使用和转移。他们将探索地球系统如何提供可再生和不可再生能源，以及这些能源如何从地球系统转换和转移到学校建筑，以满足其日常能源需求。在学生和教师共同的地方学习复杂的思想，为更深入地理解和应用能源使用和交换提供了一种手段。研究团队包括生物学和建筑学研究人员，重点是自然资源和环境。研究人员将与四名中学科学教师合作开发一个课程单元，该单元需要对能源系统模型有深入的了解，但也将被设计用于学校系统和社区。这是基于地方的学习与下一代科学标准相一致，以促进能源素养，能源使用和流动的建模以及系统思维。本研究的研究问题将询问学生构建和解释能量使用和交换模型的能力，以及教师对新开发的教学材料的使用情况。研究小组将与4名中学教师合作，在他们的课堂上设计和测试该单元。数据收集包括学生绘制的学校建筑中使用的能源系统模型，学生和教师访谈，课堂观察和教师问卷调查。学生对学习目标的理解将通过能量建模的学习表现进行评估，并附带一个评分学生模型和解释的量规。在课堂上初步实施该单元后，第二年夏天，研究人员和教师将开会修订课程材料。然后，新的课程单元的教师将参加专业发展所需的教学EYE单元。他们将在明年向学生介绍修订后的单元，因为研究人员收集数据并评估学生对修订后的课程材料的学习情况。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Student understanding of energy concepts about Earth systems and human-built systems require grappling with current societal issues related to resource use and management, energy sources, climate impacts, and sustainability. These relationships are challenging for students and underdeveloped in many science curriculum frameworks. This exploratory project will design, pilot, and evaluate a 10-weeek, energy literacy curriculum unit for a program called Energy and Your Environment (EYE). In the EYE curriculum, students will study energy use and transfer in their own school buildings. They will explore how Earth systems supply renewable and nonrenewable energy, and how these energy sources are transformed and transferred from Earth systems to a school building to meet its daily energy requirements. Learning about complex ideas in a place that is common to both students and teachers provides a means for deeper understanding and application of energy use and exchange. The research team includes researchers in biology and in architecture with an emphasis on natural resources and the environment. The researchers will work with four middle school science teachers to develop a curriculum unit that requires deep understanding of energy-systems models, but that will also be designed to apply to the school system and community. This is place-based learning aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards to foster energy literacy, modeling of energy use and flow, and systems thinking. The research questions for this study will ask about students' ability to construct and explain models about energy use and exchange, as well as about teachers’ use of the newly developed instructional materials. The research team will collaborate with 4 middle school teachers to design and test the unit in their classrooms. Data collection includes students' drawn models of the energy systems in use in their school building, student and teacher interviews, classroom observations, and teacher questionnaires. Student understanding of the learning goals will be assessed through a learning performance on energy modeling, and an accompanying rubric to score student models and explanations. After an initial implementation of the unit in classrooms, the following summer, researchers and teachers will meet to revise the curriculum materials. Then, teachers new to the curriculum unit will participate in the professional development required to teach the EYE unit. They will introduce the revised unit to their students in the next year, as researchers collect data and evaluate student learning for the revised curriculum materials. Overall, the project intends to include about 600 middle school students.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.