Strategies for Selecting an Energy Issue to Investigate

Have students collect news stories related to an effect of energy resource development and the news into categories (e.g. local, regional, state, national, or international; which energy resource is being used; the end use of energy; and so forth).

Encourage students to interview adults and classmates about what issues concern them in their community. Analyze the results to determine if there are energy connections.

Take a tour of the town and observe the environment with “foreign” eyes, looking for pollution or environmental problems. Take photos of these sites or activities and have a class vote on which topics should be investigated.

Conduct an energy audit of their home, school, or community and use the results of an end use survey to generate ideas of energy effects to investigate.

Use Setting Your Priorities to help decide which topic to study.