Electrical and Natural Gas Safety World Teacher's Guide
Page 2: Energy Vocabulary
Objective: To familiarize students with some new concepts and vocabulary.
Background/Discussion: Review the vocabulary words in the word search. Preview the book by asking students to find the first time each of these words is used. (Atoms—p. 3; Circuit—p. 5; Conductor—p. 7; Current is not used; Electricity—p. 1; Electron—p. 3; Energy—p. 1; Insulator—p. 7; Mercaptan—p. 13; Natural Gas—p. 1; Volts—p. 8; Watts is not used.) Have students write a paragraph using some of these words.
Word Search Key: The first letter of each word is in bold italics.
| I | N | S | U | L | A | T | O | R | E | |
| T | N | E | R | R | U | C | L | |||
| S | A | G | L | A | R | U | T | A | N | E |
| A | C | |||||||||
| Y | C | O | N | D | U | C | T | O | R | T |
| G | I | O | R | |||||||
| R | R | M | V | O | ||||||
| E | C | S | O | N | ||||||
| N | U | L | ||||||||
| E | L | E | C | T | R | I | C | I | T | Y |
| W | A | T | T | S | ||||||
| N | A | T | P | A | C | R | E | M |
Pages 3 and 4: How Electricity Happens
Objective: To explain how electricity is generated, and to distinguish which generation methods are based on renewable energy and which on nonrenewable energy.
Background/Discussion: How is electricity produced? (It is generated at power plants using various fuels.) No matter what fuels produce the electricity you use, do your lights shine, and does your radio play and your computer run in the same way? (Yes.) Which fuels on these two pages are used to generate most of the electricity used in the U.S? (Fossil fuels including coal, oil, and natural gas; followed by nuclear energy and hydropower.)
What does the drawing on page 4 represent? (An atom.) What is the name for the center of an atom? (Nucleus.) Have students draw pictures of atoms. Teach them that the atom has two main parts: a tiny nucleus and the electrons that surround it. The electrons actually fill the whole space around a nucleus. Electrons move in random orbits.
Which Are Renewable?
Before doing this activity, discuss the meaning of the word “replenished.” (To make full or complete again by supplying what has been used up.)
Fossil Fuels: Coal, oil, and natural gas were formed millions of years ago, when plants and tiny sea creatures were buried by sand and rock. Their bodies decomposed and as a result of the earth’s heat and pressure, they turned into fossil fuels. The processes that formed them are no longer occurring, so fossil fuels are NONRENEWABLE.
Nuclear Power: The uranium that runs nuclear power plants must be mined from the ground. Like fossil fuels, uranium supplies are finite and NONRENEWABLE.
Hydropower: The most common form of hydropower uses dams on rivers to create large reservoirs. Water in rivers is continually replenished, so hydropower is RENEWABLE. In fact, hydropower is currently one of the largest sources of renewable power.
Biomass: Wood is the largest source of biomass energy, followed by corn, sugarcane wastes, straw, and other farming by-products. Because plants and trees need sunlight to grow, biomass is a form of stored solar energy. Although it is possible to use biomass faster than we produce it, more can be grown, so biomass is RENEWABLE.