Household Energy Conservation and Efficiency
With new technology hitting the marketplace every day, home energy consumption continues to increase.Copyright (left) National Institutes of Health and (right) Health Information Technology, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, US Department of Health and Human Services http://www.noisyplanet.nidcd.nih.gov/parents/pages/athome.aspx http://healthit.ahrq.gov/images/apr10patientempowerment/Patient%20Empowerment%20508/images/image19.png
Students complete three different activities to evaluate the energy consumption in a household and explore potential ways to reduce that consumption. The focus is on conservation and energy efficient electrical devices and appliances. The lesson reinforces the relationship between power and energy and associated measurements and calculations required to evaluate energy consumption. The lesson provides students with more concrete information for completing their culminating unit assignment.
Evaluating energy consumption is the first step engineers must take when trying to reduce energy consumption. This step is part of the "understand the problem" and "gather information" steps in the problem solving spiral.
After this lesson, students should be able to:
- Calculate energy use and analyze how changing behaviors and appliances affects energy use.
- Conduct an experiment and make comparisons based on experimental evidence.