Web site of the month: National Energy Education Development Project

The NEED Project promotes an energy consciousness by creating partnerships to design and deliver energy education programs. (Artwork by National Energy Education Development Project)

It's back to school time, and for schools that are looking for ways to put a little more energy into the curriculum, the National Energy Education Development (NEED) Project is a goldmine.

The NEED Project began as National Energy Education Day in 1980, with a proclamation from President Jimmy Carter. The goal of the one-day celebration was to create a foundation to reduce the nation's dependence on fossil fuels through comprehensive energy education. Today, the NEED program provides engaging curriculum materials, exciting professional development, turnkey assessment and evaluation tools and high-quality teacher support. 

Teachers and schools that join NEED for a small membership fee receive a curriculum packet containing a variety of classroom materials. Membership also includes access to NEED conferences and subscriptions to NEED's newsletters, the quarterly Energy Exchange and the bimonthly Career Currents. Members have the opportunity to personalize programs and order supplemental materials. However, many of the resources can be downloaded from the Web site.

Energy education for all levels

Curriculum materials cover grades K-12 and encompass language arts, geography and economics, as well as science. NEED has correlated curriculums to National Science Education standards, and for most state standards.

NEED's energy infobooks lay the groundwork for an energy unit, with resource information on the sources of energy, electricity and consumption, as well as general energy information. The booklets are available in primary (grades K-4), elementary (grades 4-5) intermediate (grades 4-8), and secondary (grades 7-12) versions. All four reading levels are provided in the NEED Membership/Energy Curriculum Kit. NEED revises the classroom resources each year to provide the most complete, up-to-date information.

Wind and solar curricula for all class levels are available, and can be supplemented with purchased kits. Upper level teachers will find materials for lessons on transportation issues and thermodynamics.

NEED also has a large portfolio of lessons to teach students about energy efficiency and conservation. The project has teamed with private companies and state and Federal agencies, including Energy Star, to develop home energy efficiency kits and programming for teachers and students. Materials are updated annually through NEED's partnership with the U.S. Energy Information Administration. 

Those who would like to design an independent course of study can start with NEED's Energy Bibliography. Book title, author, topic, reading level, ISBN number, copyright date, publisher, whether it is fiction or non-fiction, and a short summary can be found here. The information is also available in Excel format.

Getting the most from the program

While good classroom materials are an important part of teaching, the NEED project recognizes that teachers need support, too.

On the curriculum page, visitors can download the Blueprint for Success, a guide to help teachers develop an effective energy education program. The booklet contains basic units and sample lesson plans for all grade levels and instructions to implement an energy unit in the classroom. There are also brief descriptions of all NEED materials with grade levels, pre- and post-energy polls to assess students' energy knowledge and an energy unit exam as evaluation tools.

The new Question Bank allows teachers to customize evaluation tools for their energy units. There are questions at four grade levels: Primary, Elementary, Intermediate and Secondary. At each grade level, the questions are divided into the following topics: Science of Energy & Forms of Energy, Sources of Energy, Electricity, Transportation, and Conservation and Efficiency. Under each topic, Knowledge, Comprehension and Application questions are included.

Administrators and school boards may be interested in NEED's Energy Education Report Card. During the 2002-03 school year, the project conducted an evaluation of the effectiveness of its education programs. The report and findings are posted on this page, along with the polls so members can continue to assess the program.

The future will demand that we learn how to use energy more efficiently, to lessen or eliminate environmental impacts of energy use, and to find new ways to use our energy sources more wisely. The NEED project gives teachers the tools to start preparing their students to meet that challenge today.

Resources

National Energy Education Development (NEED) Project

NEED membership

NEED newsletters

Curriculum materials

Resources (con't.)

Correlated curriculums

Energy Bibliography

Question Bank

Energy Education Report Card

Related articles

Energy Services Bulletin, August 2007
Web site of the month: U.S. Energy Information Administration

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