Enough Energy? Play the Renew-a-Bead Game
The “renew-a-bead game” provides youngsters with a quantitative illustration of how non-renewable resources are depleted while renewable resources continue to provide energy. Student pairs remove beads—representing units of renewable and non-renewable energy—from a bag—representing a country. A certain number of beads are removed from the bag each "year." At some point, no non-renewable (fossil fuel) energy beads remain. Since groups/countries have different ratios of renewable and non-renewable energy beads in their bags, they compare the remaining beads and time when they ran out of energy to see the value of utilizing a greater proportion of renewable resources as a sustainable energy approach. A student worksheet with instructions, data collection table and discussion questions is provided.
Coal, oil and natural gas—which come from our limited reserve of fossil fuels—provide more than 85% of all the U.S. energy consumed. What happens when we have exhausted our fossil fuel reserves?Copyright Climate Watch Magazine, NOAA Climate Services http://www.climatewatch.noaa.gov/article/2009/carbon-dioxide-earths-hottest-topic
Engineers research, develop and design equipment that captures energy from renewable and fossil fuel resources for human use. Given the eventual depletion in fossil fuel resources, engineers design technologies that capture renewable energy resources in more efficient, reliable and economically competitive ways. The bag of beads used in this game represents a physical model of our energy resources. Engineers use models of systems to help them understand the systems, discover problems, and find solutions.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Explain why an increased dependence on renewable energy sources is an inevitable part of our future.
- Describe how the depletion of fossil fuels is a serious global issue.