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Earth and Energy Study
First and Fourth Grade, Stacey Stevenson and Christine Madrid Kuhl

The Earth and Energy study at Explorer Elementary Charter School is a half-year long study in which first and fourth graders work collaboratively to explore our relationship to the earth, including climate change, energy use, and alternative energy. Through art, drama, research, writing, teaching, and hands-on project building, students learn about all aspects of energy, its use, and impact on humans and the earth.

In this project, the fourth graders and first graders learn about climate change, energy conservation, and about geothermal, solar, wind, biomass, and hydropower generation of energy. The project fulfills many curricular goals of our school, including cross-age, interdisciplinary teaching and learning; research skills, science content areas for 4th grade and first grade; connection of school learning to home; and creation of real projects to test student learning.

Our goals are for children to have a deep understanding of the role of energy in our world that they can build upon as they grow older. They learn about the many forms of generating energy and their impact on the earth. Each activity that we do has a culminating project which often involves a presentation or exhibition.

• To start our half year long study of energy, our class first brainstorms questions we have about the Earth and list these on a chart paper as a whole class group. In table groups the children discuss things that they think they know about earth. Each member of the group writes a different thing they think they know on a yellow sticky and we post these on chart paper.

• As a read aloud, I read the picture book The Earth and I about the relationship and interaction a little boy has with the earth. The illustrations for the book are beautiful water colored washes. Next we discuss the difficulty of showing the planet on a flat surface and look at several different ways other artists have done this. The children choose a version they like and attempt to draw the earth and the continents and then use watercolor washes over their drawings similar to the art in the picture book we read.

• With our 4th grade buddies, the children are put into groups of four; two first graders and two fourth graders. Each group is given one of four articles from the EPA website for kids. The articles include “Climate Change: What it is,” “Greenhouse Effect,” “Climate has come a Long Way,” and “Can we change the Climate.” The children are asked to learn the information that the article teaches and come up with a way to teach the rest of the class the big idea and the language of the discipline found in the article. They can sing, act out a skit or create some sort of visual that they can present to teach the rest of the class the information they learned.

• The children then start a research project on alternative energy. As a whole group we learn about the differences between nonrenewable energy and renewable energy and how energy is used in homes, businesses and in schools. We look at a picture from the energy hog website that shows the many different ways homes can waste energy. We will use the document camera, laptop, and projector funded through this grant for this and other direct instruction and to project websites onto the classroom screen so that all the children may engage with them at once.
• The children are asked to be energy detectives in their own home and look for ways their families may be wasting energy as a homework assignment. We do the same energy use/waste evaluation at school.

• I give an overview of the different kinds of renewable energy in use today and each student chooses a type of energy on which to do research and become an expert. The choices are; geothermal, solar, wind, biomass, and hydropower. The children work in partnerships and use booklets created by the National Energy Education Department. The booklets are leveled from kindergarten level to college. The children create diagram boards that include where the energy comes from, why it is renewable energy and how it is transformed into usable energy for homes or cars. The children present their work to the rest of the class and then to their parents on exhibition night.

• As a whole class, we study wind energy and solar energy in more depth. The groups that have studied these forms of energy begin by teaching them to the rest of the class. As a class, we learn through some direct instruction about solar cells and windmills.

• Our school site is quite windy so we do some wind monitoring outside and talk about how much wind it takes to create a certain amount of power.

• In partners with our fourth grade buddies, we build windmills and use them to power a small light, battery, or some other electrical activity that is apparent to the children.
Also in partners with the fourth graders we build solar cars and test them under various circumstances.

• Using the knowledge they learned from their research projects, the students design alternative energy cars. They first draw out their designs and are expected to explain how their car could theoretically work using only alternative energy. These are “fantasy cars” appropriate for young children, but they must involve their knowledge of alternative energy. The cars, along with the diagram boards, are presented to parents and community members at our exhibition night.