This blog is designed for North Carolina's K-12 teachers and students who are interested in the topic of energy and alternative energy (nuclear and renewables). This blog is maintained by Dana Haine, K-12 Science Education Manager for UNC-Chapel Hill's Institute for the Environment, with funding provided by Progress Energy.

Students read an article about a community wind project in Kenya, analyze the article"™s structure, and develop and categorize a list of factors to be considered when planning the wind project.

Students investigate issues of energy use in the Americas that are related to energy consumption, carbon emissions, and population size. They map and graph the information and then analyze it.

With this resource, students will interact with a "house" to learn about ways they can help the environment.

This guide was developed to support teachers in teaching topics with real-world context, and provide them with the background to feel competent and comfortable when teaching about energy. The guide includes numerous education features, such as teaching tips and student thinking, that help to connect the content to classroom practice.

In this unit, students will explore and define the concepts of sustainability and renewable energy. Using this information, they will write a letter arguing for the replacement of a non-renewable form of energy, with a renewable source of energy. Students will be assessed using the final letter rubric.

Students use an interactive computational model and real-world data to evaluate the environmental impact of extracting natural gas to generate electricity. Students explore some of the relative benefits of natural gas and some of the potential environmental costs of extracting natural gas.

Students analyze various energy sources, comparing the costs and benefits of natural gas, coal, biomass, nuclear, wind, hydropower, and solar power for generating electricity. Students use real-world data to evaluate the relative costs and benefits of using different fuel sources to generate electricity.

Students discover how geologists use the composition and location of rocks to find deposits of oil and natural gas. They use an interactive computational model to explore how hydraulic fracturing releases natural gas from deep shale formations.

In this lesson, students will describe at least two problems with burning fossil fuels and recommend solutions for reducing use of fossil fuels.

In this lesson, students analyze energy use, cost, and source patterns from household to regional scales and relate these patterns to CO2 emissions.

Students will define hydrofracking, identify how the demand for natural gas is changing, then research and map how natural gas development may impact a community.

Students read about oil production, refinement, and use and make connections to their personal energy needs in their daily lives. Students use a map to identify the scale of oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Then they discuss ways to reduce the need for oil and the threat of future oil spills.

This set of graphs from the Web site for the NOVA/FRONTLINE Special Report: "What's Up with the Weather?" reveals how atmospheric carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxides from the burning of fossil fuels have climbed over time. The graphs show data collected during the study of ice core samples and are featured in the article "Stories in the Ice." Supplemental resources, including a background essay and discussion questions, are also provided.

This brief video lesson edxamines the many ways in which energy cycles through our planet, from the sun to our food chain to electricity and beyond. Discussion/assessment questions and suggested supplemental resources are also included.

This illustrated timeline shows the history of wind energy and how it has been used throughout time.

In this lesson, students will learn that sunlight is the underlying component of energy use. Students will examine atoms as the basic building blocks of matter, including electrons, protons, and neutrons, and explore how these building blocks are used with the element silicon (Si) to produce energy. Students will perform two interactive activities to further their understanding of this concept. Finally, students will investigate careers in solar energy and report on the growing solar industry.

Students analyze the benefits and drawbacks of hydroelectric and geothermal energy and the environmental impacts on a specific geographic location. They create a multimedia presentation to share what they have learned.

In this lesson, students will investigate the development and use of solar power. They will examine the role of the sun as a source of energy and explore how humanity has relied on the sun to provide energy for our lives. Solar techniques ranging from using sunlight to warm houses to the latest technologies like advances in photovoltaic solar power will be discussed. Students will explore pre-Industrial Revolution uses of solar energy and technological advances using a Solar Decathlon house as an example. This lesson will also cover the potential energy inherent in the sun’s daily output and include activities to enhance student understanding of our daily connection to the sun.

Students will identify and define the pros and cons of the use of landfill gas to generate energy.