Feature image: Students at Green Street Academy. Photo credit: Tom Holdsworth Photography.

A new lesson on Learning Lab uses school buildings—places with which students are quite familiar—as a context for understanding relevant and required concepts about energy, efficiency and global climate science. “Exploring School Building Data: Energy,” published this week and available for free on Learning Lab, explores topics such as the sources of energy, the conversion of fossil fuels to power and sustainable building performance. It activates skills like interpreting charts, thinking critically, and using technology and data to apply learning.

In this lesson, teachers are provided resources to help students explore four questions:

• How does a school use energy?
• What is the relationship between energy use and greenhouse gas emissions?
• What is a green school?
• What is the difference between an average school and a green school?

Students use the Arc online building data platform to explore the ways school buildings use energy, and then they draw conclusions about changes in energy use and impact on greenhouse gas emissions, based on energy source.

Check out this free lesson that uses the school building as a teaching tool for opening students’ eyes to examples of science, math and engineering that exist in their own classrooms.

Take these three steps:

1. First, review the free lesson that gets students using technology to explore the energy data that they can unlock within their school.
2. Then, set up your school’s Arc profile for free.
3. Access training, curriculum, resources and the expertise of a green building professional when you purchase Building Learners at its new, lower rate of $550 for 2 years.