Eversource Energy, United Illuminating and NTC invite you to use these e-learning resources to teach your students about the importance of energy efficiency and conservation. The digital materials below are designed to get your students excited about understanding these important subjects.
Want to know the best way to use the related videos, e-books, games and other lessons to educate your class? Watch this short video and learn how to easily add The Power Squad to your curriculum.
We know your class time is extremely valuable. That’s why we ensure that all of our digital e-learning materials are aligned with state and national educational standards. It’s important that the The Power Squad digital program adds to your existing curriculum and keeps students on track with their ongoing learning.
See below for details about how each digital activity aligns with educational standards and corresponds with your state’s curricula.
Our live in-school theatrical programs are a great way to educate students about a wide variety of important topics. Theater has the ability to capture imaginations and educate at the same time! This 25-minute show features two engaging actors performing a fun story that keeps kids laughing and learning.
The Power Squad teaches viewers about the following educational points:
During the show, your students will learn important lessons about energy efficiency. You can use the lessons and activities on this page to prolong the engagement for months to come.
Your students can enhance what they learn from the program with these fun, hands-on lessons and experiments. These lessons can be done in the classroom or easily adapted for students to do at home with their families.
They’re a fun and educational way for students to learn with family members. The materials needed for these lessons are basic supplies that most people have at home. Follow up with your students to make sure they enjoyed and learned from these activities.
Lesson 1:
Objective
Students will investigate a solar panel’s ability to produce volts and amps by collecting data on series vs. parallel circuits and angles of light collection.
Purpose of Activity
Read or Listen, Identify Details, Apply Skills
21st Century Skills
Critical Thinking, Collaboration
Cognitive Level
Strategic Thinking, Extended Thinking, Skills and Concepts
Class Time
50 minutes
Materials
Procedure
Critical Thinking Questions
What are some constraints to using solar energy?
Why is solar energy attractive?
Adapted from: https://energy.utah.gov/energy-education/curriculum/
Lesson 2:
Electricity is a form of energy. Electricity powers many of the things people use every day. Despite its importance in our daily lives, few people stop to think what life would be like without electricity. But we use electricity to do many jobs for us every day – from lighting, heating, and cooling our homes to powering our televisions and computers. This activity helps illustrate the effect electricity has on our daily lives.
Students will understand the effect electricity has on their daily lives.
Review, Identify Details, Communicate, Create
Communication, Creativity
Strategic and Extended Thinking
30 minutes
Chalkboard or whiteboard
How important is electricity to your daily life? To the daily life of the school or of the city?
What would be different if there was no electricity?
Are there ways you could use less electricity today?
Lesson 3:
Objective
Students will investigate the construction of batteries based on how different materials react with one another to produce electricity.
Purpose of Activity
Read or Listen, Identify Details, Apply Skills
21st Century Skills
Critical Thinking, Collaboration
Cognitive Level
Strategic Thinking, Extended Thinking, Skills and Concepts
Class Time
2 hours
Materials
Procedure
Critical Thinking Questions
What are some uses for batteries?
Why are scientists searching for new ways to store energy in batteries?
Adapted from: https://energy.utah.gov/energy-education/curriculum/
Lesson 4:
In the video, we learned that a turbine is a giant rotating fan. In this activity, wind is used in place of steam to spin the turbine.
Students will work together to engineer a wind turbine to demonstrate how wind power works.
Apply Skills, Create
Collaboration
Strategic and Extended Thinking
30-45 minutes
Four small paper drinking cups
A pair of scissors
Two strips of stiff, corrugated cardboard, about 18” x 3” each
Stapler
One pushpin
Sharpened pencil with an eraser on the end
Modeling clay
Divide the class into teams. Teams of 3 or 4 work best.
What happens when you move the turbine to a more sheltered or more open area?
What else could power a turbine?
Follow-up, formative assessments for you to gauge the learning of your students are especially important with e-learning. Below are some suggestions for how you can assess your students’ performance quickly and effectively.
These assessments are easy for you and your students to complete and help ensure your class is getting the maximum educational value, retention and engagement from the related digital activities.
The Power Squad student activities page features games, videos, e-books, educational lessons, downloadable PDFs, a smart speaker app and more. Access in the classroom or at home to learn more about energy efficiency and have fun exploring The Power Squad!
This downloadable PDF features colorful artwork, entertaining games and activities, and expanded information to complete your understanding of energy efficiency. Read on your own, with your class, or with friends and family and get to know the characters of The Power Squad.
Flip through this colorful, illustrated e-book in the classroom or at home with friends and family. Students can read to themselves or with others, and younger students can use the read-along option.
Flip through this colorful graphic novel for a new and engaging story. With beautiful artwork, entertaining characters and expanded information, the Electrana graphic novel offers a page-turning experience.
We take your feedback and suggestions very seriously. Hearing from educators with firsthand experience with our programs ensures that we continue to improve our digital resources, making them as beneficial as possible for you and your students.
Please complete this brief, two-minute evaluation to let us know what you thought. Enter the code you received on the Teacher Instruction Card or call us for your access code.
Thank you for your time and valuable input.
You’ve covered the basics of energy and conservation. If you really want to dig deep with your class, explore the expanded information and additional resources below.
These materials provide even more insight into the history, science, usage and importance of energy. There are also helpful links and tips for saving energy in your community.
Expanded Information 1:
Read the passage to your students, have them play the Build a Power Plant game, and ask them the critical thinking questions that follow.
We use electricity every day to power our TVs, computers, video games, lamps and about a million other things. But where does electricity come from, and how does it get into those funny looking holes in the wall?
Let’s go backwards. The outlets in your wall are connected to a series of wires that lead to utility poles outside of your house or apartment building. These wires then lead to transformers or substations, which, in turn, lead to a power plant. It’s in the power plant that the electricity is created.
In the 1800s, scientists discovered that when a magnet is dragged across a series of copper wires, it creates a field of electricity. The problem is, in order to keep your lightbulb lit, there has to be a constant current of electricity flowing through it, which means the magnet has to be continually moving. To solve this problem, the magnets in the power plant are surrounded by wires on all sides. So if the magnets spin in a circle, they create a nonstop current.
But how do we keep that magnet spinning? One way is to attach it to a turbine. A turbine is like a giant fan. Imagine a child’s pinwheel. If the magnet were attached to that pinwheel, then it would spin any time the child blew on it. In the power plant, the pinwheel-like turbine isn’t spun by a child with amazing lung capacity, but instead with steam. By focusing steam through smaller and smaller pipes, it becomes so powerful it can spin the turbine with great ease.
All that steam comes from boiling large amounts of water. The more water we boil, the more steam we produce, which takes us to resources. All of that water has to boil somehow, and we make that happen by burning resources like coal, oil and natural gas. The more electricity we make, the more resources it takes to make it. And because there’s only so much coal, oil and natural gas in the world, it’s more important than ever that we conserve, or save, electricity wherever possible.
Use the objects below to build a power plant. Click on the play button to start.
What is another way we can spin the turbine?
What happens when we run out of resources like coal or natural gas?
Expanded Information 2:
Read this passage to your students and ask them the discussion questions that follow.
The three most basic units in electricity are voltage, current and resistance. Voltage is measured in volts, current is measured in amps and resistance is measured in ohms.
A neat analogy to help understand these terms is a system of plumbing pipes. The voltage is equivalent to the water pressure, the current is equivalent to the amount of water, and the resistance is like the pipe size.
How do they relate?
Current is equal to the voltage divided by the resistance.
Let’s see how this relationship applies to the plumbing system. Let’s say you have a tank of pressurized water connected to a hose that you are using to water the garden.
What happens if you increase the pressure in the tank? You probably can guess that this makes more water come out of the hose. The same is true of an electrical system: Increasing the voltage will make more current flow.
Let’s say you increase the diameter of the hose and all of the fittings to the tank. You probably guessed that this also makes more water come out of the hose. This is like decreasing the resistance in an electrical system, which increases the current flow.
Electrical power is measured in watts. In an electrical system, power (P) is equal to the voltage multiplied by the current.
The water analogy still applies. Take a hose and point it at a waterwheel like the ones that were used to turn grinding stones in watermills. You can increase the power generated by the waterwheel in two ways. If you increase the pressure of the water coming out of the hose, it hits the waterwheel with a lot more force and the wheel turns faster, generating more power. If you increase the flow rate, the waterwheel turns faster because of the weight of the extra water hitting it.
Source: HowStuffWorks.com
Using the plumbing analogy, what happens when you lower the pressure (or current)?
Why would some locations need more electricity than others?
Write C=v/r on the board. Ask students what the Current (C) would be if the Volts (v) = 20, and the Ohms (r) = 4.
What would the Volts (v) be if the Current (C) = 50 and the Ohms (r) = 5?
Expanded Information 3:
