This video describes in detail the greenhouse effect and how recovery from energy from fossile fuels results in green house gases. This video is part of the Sustainability Learning Suites, made possible in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. See 'Learn more about this resource' for Learning Objectives and Activities.

This video distinguishes between renewable and non-renewable energy resources. It examines the question, "How long to do we have before we exhaust non-renewable resources?" It also looks at alternatives to non-renewable energy resources. This video is part of the Sustainability Learning Suites, made possible in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. See 'Learn more about this resource' for Learning Objectives and Activities.

Students explore a Global Energy Balance Climate Model Using Stella II. Response of surface temperature to variations in solar input, atmospheric and surface albedo, atmospheric water vapor and carbon dioxide, volcanic eruptions, and mixed layer ocean depth. Climate feedbacks such as water vapor or ice-albedo can be turned on or off.

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This Lesson provides two different activities that require students to measure energy outputs and inputs to determine the efficiency of conversions and simple systems. One of the activities includes Lego motors and accomplishing work. The other investigates energy for heating water. They learn about by products of energy conversions and how to improve upon efficiency. The teacher can choose to use either of these or both of these. The calculations in the water heating experiment are more complicated than in the Lego motor activity. Thus, the heating activity is suitable for older students, only the Lego motor activity suitable for younger students.

We all know that it takes energy to provide us with the basics of shelter: heating, cooling, lighting, electricity, sanitation and cooking. To create energy-efficient housing that is practical for people to use every day requires combining many smaller systems that each perform a function well, and making smart decisions about the sources of power we use. Through five lessons on the topics of heat transfer, circuits, daylighting, electricity from renewable energy sources, and passive solar design, students learn about the science, math and engineering that go into designing energy-efficient components of smart housing that is environmentally friendly. Through numerous design/build/analyze activities, students create a solar water heater, swamp cooler, thermostat, model houses for testing, model greenhouse, and wind and water turbine prototypes. It is best if students are concurrently taking Algebra 1 in order to complete some of the worksheets.

With increasing public awareness of the multiple effects of global environmental change, the terms water, energy, and food crisis have become widely used in scientific and political debates on sustainable development and environmental policy. Although each of these crises has distinct drivers and consequences, providing sustainable supplies of water, energy, and food are deeply interrelated challenges and require a profound understanding of the political, socioeconomic, and cultural factors that have historically shaped these interrelations at a local and global scale.

With increasing public awareness of the multiple effects of global environmental change, the terms water, energy, and food crisis have become widely used in scientific and political debates on sustainable development and environmental policy. Although each of these crises has distinct drivers and consequences, providing sustainable supplies of water, energy, and food are deeply interrelated challenges and require a profound understanding of the political, socioeconomic, and cultural factors that have historically shaped these interrelations at a local and global scale.

This pair of interactive visualizations allows students to explore basic and more complex concepts around heat conduction, heat capacity and energy transfer. The basic simulation demonstrates how heating and cooling iron, brick, water, and olive oil adds or removes energy from a system and transfers between objects. At the more advanced level, the systems simulation allows students to see that energy takes various forms, as well as how energy flows and changes from one form of energy into another.

This simulation lets learners explore how heating and cooling adds or removes energy. Use a slider to heat blocks of iron or brick to see the energy flow. Next, build your own system to convert mechanical, light, or chemical energy into electrical or thermal energy. (Learners can choose sunlight, steam, flowing water, or mechanical energy to power their systems.) The simulation allows students to visualize energy transformation and describe how energy flows in various systems. Through examples from everyday life, it also bolsters understanding of conservation of energy. This item is part of a larger collection of simulations developed by the Physics Education Technology project (PhET).

Each student has been given a packet of information on an energy topic. There are two articles that all the students will receive, on energy conservation and addiction to oil, and then several others on their specific topic. Each student will be instructed to become the classroom expert on their specific topic by reading the articles and being invited to look up more information.

These steps are modified from Step by Step Instructions for Gallery Walk

I learned this technique at a Cutting Edge workshop put on by the National Association of Geoscience Teachers called Designing Innovative and Effective Geoscience Courses in the summer of 2008.

The steps to this lesson are:

I have generated a list of questions around energy.
The questions will be written on poster-sized paper, one question to each sheet.
The questions will be posted in a foyer area.
The students have been given general directions in the previous class, and more specific directions will be given the day of the event.
The students have been prepared by reading packets of energy information, as described above in this document. They have also been advised on how the grading rubric and feedback will be used.
The students will be put into groups of two, because the class is so small. Each group will have a different colored marker. If the groups were larger, roles would be assigned, like recorder, speaker, emissary, etc... That won't work with this small class.
We will begin the gallery walk. Each team will start at a different chart, read the question, talk to each other, then document their response in their colored ink. They will be encouraged to write in a pithy bulleted format closest to the top of the chart.
The teams will rotate to a new station after a period of time (to be determined!) They will rotate clockwise. Arriving at a new station, the students will read the question, the responses of the other groups who posted before them, and add their comments, sort of like a BLOG. The groups can switch recorders at each station to keep all members involved.
I will monitor the students' progress. I may have to intervene to clarify a point or direct the students to think of something they may have overlooked. I will wander between groups, listening in, and asking "Socratic" guiding questions if needed.
Once all groups have responded to all the posters, they can return to posters to read the other postings, and even add to their own comments.
After the rotations and comment period, students will "report out", which each group synthesizes the comments for each question into a summary. The groups will then take turns making oral reports on the questions at hand. I may decide to have them do a written report instead, so that they create a document to refer to later in the course.
I will be gauging student understanding throughout the report stage, to reinforce correctly expressed concepts and correct for errors or misconceptions.

The questions my students had to answer were:

What sources of energy (conventional and alternative-yet-to-be-brought-to-market) are appropriate powering motor vehicles? In detail, what are the advantages and disadvantages of each?
What sources of energy (conventional and alternative) are appropriate for powering homes? (Heat, hot water, cooking, cooling, light, etc) In detail, what are the advantages and disadvantages?
What are the most polluting energy sources, and what type of pollution do they produce? What are the least polluting energy sources, and why aren't we using them more?
What are fifteen ways the average person can conserve energy?
Do we need to conserve energy? Do developing nations need to? Why or why not?
Should energy conservation be a legal mandate from the U.S. government for our citizens? Should the U.N. require international consensus on energy conservation? Would that be fair to developing nations?
What are the reasons we can no longer depend on fossil fuels (both domestic and imported) to power the United States of America? What are the great issues at stake?
Who will pay the price for energy decisions made (or not made) in the next few years? What do you anticipate that price might be?

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This course looks at all forms that energy exists. It explains how energy is used in: transport, agriculture, industry, commerce and households. It describes how energy is stored using storage systems such as: battery, flywheels, compressed air, chemical energy systems and pumped storage. This course explains the problem of depletion of energy resources. It describes the environmental damage associated with the use of fossil fuels, acid rains, dangers posed by leaded fuels, oil spills, gas leaks and explosions, water pollution caused by poorly managed coal mines, and air pollution. It describes the environmental damage associated with the use of fuelwood, uranium, hydro-power plants and wind. It also explains possible solutions to the energy-related problems.

A survey of how America has become the world's largest consumer of energy. Explores American history from the perspective of energy and its relationship to politics, diplomacy, the economy, science and technology, labor, culture, and the environment. Topics include muscle and water power in early America, coal and the Industrial Revolution, electrification, energy consumption in the home, oil and US foreign policy, automobiles and suburbanization, nuclear power, OPEC and the 70's energy crisis, global warming, and possible paths for the future.

A survey of how America has become the world’s largest consumer of energy. Explores American history from the perspective of energy and its relationship to politics, diplomacy, the economy, science and technology, labor, culture, and the environment. Topics include muscle and water power in early America, coal and the Industrial Revolution, electrification, energy consumption in the home, oil and U.S. foreign policy, automobiles and suburbanization, nuclear power, OPEC and the 70’s energy crisis, global warming, and possible paths for the future.

What is energy? It's the hot in heat, the glow in light, the push in wind, the pound in water, the sound of thunder and the crack of lightening. It is the pull that keeps us (and everything else!) from simply flying apart, and the promise of an oak deep in an acorn. It is all the same, and it is all different. Sunshine and waterfalls won't start your car, and wind won't run the dishwasher. But, if we match the form and timing of the energy with your needs, all of these things could be true. Energy in a Changing World is about the full arc of energy transformation, delivery, use, economics and environmental impact, especially climate change.

Energy and the environment are inextricably linked. Delivery of energy services (what humans want) is the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions, and our energy resource use affects water, land, and wildlife as well. All energy resources have environmental impacts, but some, namely fossil fuels, have more impacts than others.

The negative impacts of energy resource use disproportionately affect low income communities and communities of color in the US and globally. As our population grows and energy access increases, it is important to figure out how we will deliver energy services sustainably and in a way that addresses inequities in environmental impacts.

If you’re interested in the concept of building with nature, then this is the engineering course for you. This course explores the use of natural materials and ecological processes in achieving effective and sustainable hydraulic infrastructural designs. You will learn the Building with Nature ecosystem-based design concept and its applications in water and coastal systems. During the course, you will be presented with a range of case studies to deepen your knowledge of ecological and engineering principles.

You’ll learn from leading Dutch engineers and environmental scientists who see the Building with Nature integrated design approach as fundamental to a new generation of engineers and ecologists.

Students design a temporary habitat for a future classroom pet—a hingeback tortoise. Based on their background research, students identify what type of environment this tortoise needs and how to recreate that environment in the classroom. The students divide into groups and investigate the features of a habitat for a hingeback tortoise. These features include how many holes a temporary habitat may need, the animal’s ideal type of bedding, and how much water is needed to create the necessary humidity level within the tortoise’s environment. Each group communicates and presents this information to the rest of the class after they research, brainstorm, collect and analyze data, and design their final plan.

A new approach to safety, based on systems thinking, that is more effective, less costly, and easier to use than current techniques. Engineering has experienced a technological revolution, but the basic engineering techniques applied in safety and reliability engineering, created in a simpler, analog world, have changed very little over the years. In this groundbreaking book, Nancy Leveson proposes a new approach to safety—more suited to today's complex, sociotechnical, software-intensive world—based on modern systems thinking and systems theory. Revisiting and updating ideas pioneered by 1950s aerospace engineers in their System Safety concept, and testing her new model extensively on real-world examples, Leveson has created a new approach to safety that is more effective, less expensive, and easier to use than current techniques. Arguing that traditional models of causality are inadequate, Leveson presents a new, extended model of causation (Systems-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes, or STAMP), then shows how the new model can be used to create techniques for system safety engineering, including accident analysis, hazard analysis, system design, safety in operations, and management of safety-critical systems. She applies the new techniques to real-world events including the friendly-fire loss of a U.S. Blackhawk helicopter in the first Gulf War; the Vioxx recall; the U.S. Navy SUBSAFE program; and the bacterial contamination of a public water supply in a Canadian town. Leveson's approach is relevant even beyond safety engineering, offering techniques for “reengineering” any large sociotechnical system to improve safety and manage risk.

Throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries tribal nations and Indigenous communities have continued to assert their right to self-governance and sovereignty despite numerous efforts to force them to assimilate. By extension, the purposeful erasure of Indigenous peoples as a living and thriving presence in the current, modern-day world also remains a reality.  Tribal sovereignty predates the existence of the U.S. government and the state of Oregon. Tribalgovernments are separate and unique sovereign nations with the power to execute their self-governance to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens and to govern their lands, air, and waters. One of the ways Indigenous communities have been embodying their right to sovereignty is through the establishment of an Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Indigenous Peoples’ Day serves as a reminder of the contributions, both past and present, of Indigenous communities and tribal nations. In this lesson, students will explore the concepts of tribal sovereignty and self-determination and learn about efforts by tribes and other entities to promote and support the celebration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. This lesson is meant to be used with its companion lesson: Indigenous Peoples’ Day as an Act of Sovereignty Part II.

Throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries tribal nations and Indigenous communities havecontinued to assert their right to self-governance and sovereignty despite numerous efforts to forcethem to assimilate. By extension, the purposeful erasure of Indigenous peoples as a living and thriving presence in the contemporary world also remains a reality. Tribal sovereignty predates the existence of the U.S. government and the state of Oregon. Tribal governments are separate and unique sovereign nations with the power to execute their self governance to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens and to govern their lands, air, and waters. One of the ways Indigenous communities have been embodying their right to sovereignty is through the establishment of an Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Indigenous Peoples’ Day serves as reminder of the contributions, both past and present, of Indigenous communities and tribal nations. This lesson extends the knowledge gained from Part I by asking students to make meaning of Indigenous Peoples’ Day and to explore how advocacy leads to a local proclamation and change.