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Today’s new generation is “all ears” when it comes to using our energy resources
responsibly. As you’ve probably already seen, they’re ready to dive right in and get to
work. They just need to know where to start.
As a teacher, you can give them the guidance they’re looking for. And as your partner in
sustainable energy solutions, we’re ready to help. This e-newsletter offers energy tips that
complement our Energy Explorer website and energy education booklets. Our website
and booklets support New York, Rhode Island and Massachusetts ELA/reading, Science
and Health standards, and are ideal for both classroom use and remote learning at home.
We hope you’ll enjoy this issue and will share its energy-efficiency messages with your
class, your colleagues, and parents or caregivers. For more energy education resources,
please visit ngridenergyworld.com. |
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| Energy vampires live among us |
Energy vampires are appliances and devices that
drain power even when they’re not actually doing
anything. These devices account for about five
percent of your home’s energy use, and even
more for schools, which usually have lots of older
equipment.
Five percent may not seem like much, but it adds up
fast! Across all U.S. households this energy usage
amounts to an estimated 65 billion kilowatt-hours
of electricity each year. This extra electricity costs
consumers more than 5.8 billion dollars, and sends
more than 87 billion pounds of heat-trapping carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere. (Yes, that’s 87 billion.) |
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| Energy Vampires can be elusive – but not for a seasoned Energy Vampire Hunter. Share these
tips with your students to track them down: |
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Some of them are ancient. Look around the house or classroom for older computer
monitors, other electronics and device chargers for older phones and laptops. These guys
are some of the biggest Energy Vampires of them all! |
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Let them sleep in peace. Particularly with more recent models, putting your computer
into “sleep” mode may use less power than shutting it down completely. Why? Because it
takes more power to start up cold than it does to simply wake up. |
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They try to fool you with pretty pictures. Speaking of computers, unless you have
a really old desktop with an antique CRT monitor (laugh!), you don’t really need a
screensaver, which only keeps the computer busy (and gobbling up lots of energy) when
you’re not even around. |
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Be sensitive to the light. You’ve seen it: No lights are on, but the room isn’t quite dark.
These days, almost every device includes a light or clock. Even those super-efficient
LEDs are still sucking power. Of course, some do need to stay on all the time; your DVR,
for example (you wouldn’t want to miss the latest installment of your favorite vampire
hunter series.) For these devices, especially, look for ENERGY STAR® ratings and
recommendations. |
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| How to slay energy vampires |
It’s easy (bwah-ha-ha-ha!). Just unplug them, and their vampiring days are over. They’ll thank
you for it, too. Powering down completely may help your devices last longer.
Got a whole nest of them? Plug them all into a power strip, and shut them all off at once. Even
better, get one of those newer smart power strips with circuitry designed to monitor and control
power to each electrical outlet in the strip to improve energy efficiency and prevent power
wasting. |
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| Explore all our educational resources |
| Order complimentary student booklets for grades K–9 |
Our booklets give students a break from screen
time and feature home safety and energy use
inspections, energy safety tips, activities and
experiments to engage the whole household.
When students share energy resources with
their families, everyone benefits.
Companion teacher’s guides make it easy
to implement the lessons, with detailed
background information, discussion points,
follow-up activities and answer keys. And pre/
post tests for each booklet make it easy to
assess student learning. Order online today! |
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| Our Energy Explorer website has a new look! |
| We’ve updated our Energy Explorer website at ngridenergyworld.com to make it even more
engaging for students and easy for teachers to use. The “Teachers” section of the site includes
many helpful resources: |
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One-page student worksheets and answer keys help students review key content. |
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Teacher tips help you explain all experiments. |
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E-books have companion teacher’s guides with background and discussion suggestions
for each page, plus downloadable and reproducible pre/post tests. |
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