Lesson Plan: Methods of Energy Production Physics
This lesson plan includes the objectives, prerequisites, and exclusions of the lesson teaching students how to identify which energy sources are renewable and which energy sources are nonrenewable.
Objectives
Students will be able to
- understand that there are different types of power plants that can produce electricity,
- classify different energy sources as renewable or nonrenewable,
- understand the greenhouse effect and know what greenhouse gases are,
- recall that carbon dioxide and methane are greenhouse gases,
- classify different energy sources based on which pollutants they produce,
- identify examples of biofuels,
- recall which elements can be used as fuel in nuclear fission reactors.
Prerequisites
Students should already be familiar with
- what the different categories of energy are,
- the idea that energy can be transferred between different categories.
Exclusions
Students will not cover
- how specific types of power stations work,
- the advantages and disadvantages of different types of power stations, such as the typical cost for building them, the ease of finding a location for them, and so on,
- how power is transmitted across large distances (electricity transmission networks),
- transformers.