Please introduce yourself and your school.
Name: Cori Carter
City: Blue Hill, Maine
Grades taught: 4th grade
School type: Rural public school
Student demographics: 250 students, PreK-8th
Which activities did you teach?
- Pre-Unit Values Activity
- Lesson 1 – Activity 1, 2 & 4 (Energy Observation of School Grounds, Food Chain and Energy Transfer Game, Carbon Cycle Game)
- Lesson 2 – Activity 1, 2 & 3 (Trusted Adult Interview & Gallery Walk, Community Map, What are our Local Energy Sources?)
- Lesson 6 (Action Project)
Over about a month and a half from the end of December through the first week of February, I taught a unit on energy using the Experience Energy curriculum. We worked through lessons one and two. We started the unit by exploring a game from lesson one as part of our nature time. This was a low-stakes way to discuss an upcoming topic for science and engage students in play using our outdoor learning space. We then engaged in the pre-unit value activity. This allowed the students to explore what personal values are. After sharing our individual values, we determined what our class values were and let those values lead our learning going forward.
We explored potential and kinetic energy as well as Newton’s laws separate from the Experience Energy units. We will return to these concepts for lesson 6 ‘Take Action’. We have a plan in development to place planters around the school to provide food, connection, and environmental information to members of our school community.
These lessons are connected with NGSS science standard 4-ESS3-1. Obtain and combine information to describe that energy and fuels are derived from natural resources and their uses affect the environment.
To assess students for their understanding of these concepts, I collected ongoing reflection journal prompts from students as suggested in the curriculum, as well as short Kahoot and Blooket quizzes completed throughout the unit. Students were asked to design projects as a part of the process of taking action to reduce our impact on the environment around us by conserving energy and promoting a healthy community. This project assessed their ability to put their learning into action.
Which activities went well? What made them successful?
One of my favorite activities was the values activity used as an opener. I hope to use this activity at the beginning of the school year going forward. I was amazed at how many students hadn’t considered what their values were before this activity. Following the values activity we worked through lessons one and two where we did an energy evaluation of our school’s energy use and then explored the energy cycle through understanding where it comes from and how it flows. I was excited to see the connections my students made after exploring the carbon cycle and how that, in combination with our major energy sources for power and heat, are creating the release of so much carbon into our atmosphere. This connected well with other subjects we have explored such as Earth’s changes over time and how human impact has affected our oceans, plains, and erosion.
Which activities were challenging? What was difficult about them?
My greatest challenge with this resource was that I picked it up part way through the year. The first time teaching with any resource is always going to be challenging and I found some of this intimidating simply because climate change is such a turbulent topic. I was excited to find that my administration and the parents of my students were all receptive to the subject. I would say that just figuring out how things worked – such as the materials needed for the food web game in lesson one or the dice for the carbon cycle in lesson two – was a bit frustrating. I also attribute that to this being my first time working with the curriculum. In the future, I would plan better knowing what each lesson contains as well as where I would place supplemental materials for concepts separate from the topics covered in this curriculum.
Please tell one or two stories that are relevant to your situation and experience teaching the resource.
When teaching Experience Energy my students were engaged and excited to explore the concepts presented. When we played the carbon cycle game my students were very frustrated by the fact that they kept getting stuck at the ‘underground station’. When we came back together, my students were able to connect this with our learning previously about how sediment seals the dead plants and animals under layers of earth, locking the material in place as it breaks down. This led to my students understanding how pockets of oil have been created and that we harvest that oil to then burn or use in various ways, thus releasing the carbon that is supposed to be locked in the earth into the air. I really loved how the material was presented in layers, allowing students to use inquiry to naturally discover the material.
To prepare for the lesson where we did an energy observation walk around the school, our class connected with our building maintenance lead who was excited to share the ways our school is working to make the building more energy efficient and environmentally friendly. This person’s excitement passed onto the students, who then proudly told their families about how the school is becoming more environmentally friendly. All of this helped to get parents and students alike excited when we embarked on the interview phase of the curriculum.
Students interviewed parents, grandparents, and distant relatives through in-person discussions and video calls. Students were excited to share what they had learned and listen to other students’ stories. This activity really brought our classroom communities together in connecting our personal stories with our learning and creative problem solving skills.
Cori is a fourth grade teacher in rural Maine. She has a love of nature which shines through in her classroom. Cori has experience working with her community and educators throughout her state to bring highly engaging experiences to her students. Her shining achievement is her family of four which live on a small farm in the woods of coastal Maine.
In her classroom Cori has brought in resources to expand her students’ learning in agriculture, STEM activities, and ecological education.To do this she has partnered with many local groups including Maine Agricultural in the Classroom, NASA’s Endeavor Educator programs, Maine Fish Friends Network, and the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.These programs and resources that go along with them are helping her to educate today’s students about their environment and the importance of being active in maintaining our ecosystem.
Want more inspirational ideas on how to use Experience Energy? Read the other case studies and download the resource on Climate Generation’s Resource Library.
