Enova’s Energy Challenge – a digital energy education concept for primary schools

Published on July 7, 2015

Enova has launched a digital educational concept for teaching primary school students about energy. The focus in on learning about energy: What is energy; What can energy be used for; What are the different energy sources; What is the link between energy use and climate change and what are the consequences of climate change? The target group is teachers, who get a digital “toolbox” for implementing four (4) two-hour school lessons. The “toolbox” includes presentations, a film for each theme and different types of tasks for the students to do in class and at home. Time for these types of lessons has been allocated in the official curriculum in Norwegian schools. The primary focus of the concept is on schoolchildren aged from 9 to 12. The concept was launched in 2014 and the target is that all 3000 primary schools in Norway start using the toolbox.

The aim of the project is to strengthen students´ understanding and awareness of energy use and its link to climate change and explain what kinds of solutions exist for addressing such challenges exist. The goal is to raise school children's; awareness and increase understanding as early as possible. One of the primary objectives has been to design a cost effective, awareness raising and lifestyle-changing concept, which is easy to distribute, maintain and update. The concept is based on the Rainmaker concept for educating students about energy use and sustainability was launched in 2002. It was highly successful and is still used in several European countries. The Rainmaker concept adoption in Europe was financed by the Intelligent Energy Europe program. The goal is to have all 3000 primary schools in Norway use the new web based concept in their normal curriculum. The digital concept includes everything a teacher needs for implementing four energy related lessons for children aged from 9 to 12. The concept includes four films, which can be used for the lessons, ideas for homework, ideas for tasks and projects for the students to do during lessons. The focus is on climate change and finding solutions for the problems. It also serves to raise awareness of the impacts on climate change, which are caused by energy choices and usage in different regions of the world. Success factors The to date established criteria for measuring success are: 1) How the digital learning concept contributes to spreading the knowledge of Enova SF's activities and goals 2) the number of schools and teachers using the tool 3) the effectiveness of the tool via qualitative evaluations done both the teachers and the students (Self-evaluation) 4) how anchored the tool is in the official curriculum 5) the tool is user-friendly and functions correctly One of central success criteria will be securing the commitment of teachers to this approach. Another critical success factor is giving adequate technical support to those teachers needing help getting started. So far, both teachers as well as students have shown interest and high motivation to apply the toolbox. The goals, which have been set regarding enrollment have been exceeded. Sustainability Impacts The feedback received so far indicates that students have been highly motivated by the concept and that the teachers appear pleased with having an up to-date tool that helps the planning and implementation of lessons in a subject which is perceived as challenging to teach. Cost-effectiveness The digital concept is more cost efficient in the longer term than a paper based educational concept, which previously used by some schools. The contents of the digital platform are easy to change and distribute when the concept and its contents are in need of updating to reflect the newest information available or current events. Challenges, lessons learned and potential for development Especially teachers who are new to teaching are eager to adopt the concept and the tools. Other teachers have been somewhat slower to adopt the tools. One of the lessons learned so far has been that some teachers need support in IT- related issues in order to effectively apply such tools. Contact person for more information: Anne Marie Abelgaard, ama@enova.no or post@enova.no