There are more and more people living on this planet every day, and each new person will cause an increase in the use of energy. With energy prices starting to increase, people are just beginning to reduce their use, but there is still a long way to go in order to be responsible energy users.

Personal Power

How much energy are students' families using? Take a close look by having students conduct an audit in their homes. Have younger children write the words or draw pictures of all the things around their homes that use electricity. Have older students conduct an audit with their parents' help, to assess how many appliances and electronics they have and how much they use them. Using the survey at www.ase.org/uploaded_files/educatorlessonplans/howmuch.pdf, you can also determine an estimate of how much it costs to use all of the energy. How does it compare to an actual utility bill? Are there any energy hogs or vampires sitting around? Ask the families to commit to taking at least one step to reduce their energy consumption. You can have them take the Green Ribbon Pledge at www.greenribbonpledge.org/pledge/index.html. The pledge will help them identify a specific action and calculate how much of a savings they will see. Their pledge will be added in to the entire campaign's pledge and you can see how much energy is being saved overall. The numbers add up fast, showing every little bit helps!

Drafts Are Daft

One way people waste energy is through drafty homes and poorly insulated walls. While you can't ask people to invest in insulation, you can show them where energy might be slipping away through a simple draft test. A side benefit to this project is that it will help keep out rodents and insects.

First, make a draft tester by taping a small sheet of used (cleaned) plastic wrap to a pencil. It should be affixed so that when the pencil is held near a draft, the plastic wrap will move from the airflow.

Next, check locations around the house that could be drafty and rate each location as a three (strong draft), two (moderate draft), one (weak draft), or zero (no draft). Here are the most common locations for drafts:

What did the students find? Are their houses drafty or pretty well sealed? For many of the leaks, parents can simply caulk the area to plug the cracks. You can also have the kids make draft guards from fabric and rice. They are essentially long snakes that sit at the base of doorways or windows to block drafts. You can presew the cloth tubes and leave one end open or use old tights or even children's pant legs as material for the snakes. Fill each snake with about 2 pounds of rice. Have the students fill the snakes outdoors because the rice will end up all over the place. Use fabric glue or fusible webbing to close the end after the snake is filled. You can even turn them into “real” critters by having the students glue or paint on eyes and faces.