Grade 5 and 6 students at St. Joseph Elementary School got right into the excitement as Alberta non-profit Inside Education: Environmental and Natural Resource Education, stopped at the school on March 23 to host one of its energy expos. Taylor Weaver Meridian Source
What’s a renewable energy resource? What’s a non-renewable energy source?
These questions, and many more, were asked and answered last week at St. Joseph Elementary School as Alberta-based non-profit Inside Education: Environmental and Natural Resource Education stopped by to host one of its energy expos.
“We do environmental and natural resource management for students and teachers all across Alberta, and a little bit into Saskatchewan and B.C.,” said Inside Education’s Natalie Graveline.
“Our programming focuses on the natural resources found across Alberta, so everything to do with forestry, energy, wildlife, agriculture, water, and this is a program specifically focused on natural resources and how we used them for energy and electricity.”
Graveline also pointed out the energy expo fits in very well with Albertan’s day-to-day lives, the home lives of kids as well as those working in the oil and gas and energy fields.
“We’re here for a couple of reasons, one being getting students thinking about energy and natural resources, which is a huge topic here in Alberta, so it gets students thinking early on what it means to be a natural-resource province, and what it means to have choices as to where our energy and electricity comes from,” she said. “
We want to create life-long learners, but everything is also curriculum-linked.”
Inside Education set up seven different stations in the gym at St. Joe’s for students to work through, and the response was better than expected.
“There’s a couple of stations exploring renewables, sorting resources into renewable and non-renewable, as well as exploring how much energy a solar panel makes,” she said.
“Energy stewardship is also a big focus, so we talk about why we switch from incandescent to LED lightbulbs, as well as how could we be energy stewards in our homes and not waste as much.”
Olivia Bell, a 12-year-old student at St. Joe’s, had a blast working through the various stations and explained she learned quite a bit through the experience.
“My favourite station was the Connect Four station because I thought it was unique, I also got to learn a ton of new things about natural resources and non-renewable energy sources,” she said.
“It’s important to learn about all of this so when we’re older we don’t waste them.”
As a non-profit, Graveline explained the energy expo came at no cost to the school.
“When we offer these programs, everything we offer is no-cost,” she said. “When we do classroom programs or teacher development, it’s always no-cost, and we find that’s a very valuable resource because not many things are free nowadays.”