This chapter describes our middle school energy literacy project to develop, implement, and test curriculum materials for a unit titled Energy and Your Environment (EYE). EYE fosters place-based education by using the school building to enhance systems thinking about energy consumption and flow between the building and surrounding environment. Within the curriculum unit, students first consider the carbon footprint of buildings. Next, students explore the role of electrical, thermal, and light energy in their school building and consider how building features (such as windows, lighting, and insulation) impact energy flow and conservation within the building. Finally, students use their energy systems knowledge to design and build a one-room energy efficient building with simple materials to explain how and why their design impacts global carbon emissions. Five teachers implemented EYE over one academic year with more than 300 students. Preliminary data analyses from two classrooms reveal how students’ system thinking about energy flow shifted as they developed knowledge of the built environment and its impacts on global carbon emissions. This chapter focuses on EYE unit development, analysis of students’ systems learning across the unit, and next steps toward supporting students to think about energy flow in their everyday lives.
Zangori, L., Otto, S., Cole, L., Snyder, R., Oertli, R. T., & Fallahhosseini, S. (2024). Energy and your environment (EYE): Place-based curriculum unit to empower students’ energy literacy and conservation. In X. Fazio (Ed). Science Curricula for The Anthropocene: Curriculum Models for Our Collective Future – Volume II, Palgrave/Springer Nature.