1.5 Who use? Who gain? Who lose? 

Instructional Sequence

Materials: Teacher slides 1.5 Who Use? Who Gain? Who Lose?

Issue 1: Using too much fossil fuels produces greenhouse gas emissions and causes climate change (slide 2-6)

• How has energy consumption changed during the past 150 years? Review the table and line graphic for “Energy consumption from 1870 to 2020.” 

• Students should be able to summarize that from 1870 to 2020, the amount of energy consumption exhibited a huge amount of increase; and a huge amount of energy consumption increase was due to the rise of fossil fuels.

• Further link the two graphs students examined before: global atmospheric CO2 concentration and global average temperature from 1850 to 2020, students should be able to summarize that the first energy issue is that using too much fossil fuels produces greenhouse gas emissions and causes climate change

Issue 2: People in the poor developing countries suffer from energy poverty and climate change (slides 7-9)

Slide 7: Students watch a video about energy poverty. 

Slide 8: Introduce the issue of energy poverty. The satellite image shows that because many countries in Africa have little access to electricity, it is dark at night.

Slide 9: Students discuss in small group discussion and share with class.  

In the water unit, students explored water use in US, Israel, India, and Cote D’lvoire (Ivory Coast). In this lesson, students compare the energy use in these four countries. They also use the graph to predict how much energy (in trend) each country will use. The last discussion question asks why the energy use per person in the US can decrease. This is an open-ended question. Possible answers include: 

• Economic recessions in the 1980s and 2001

• COVID (travel restriction, closed offices and businesses, work-from-home)

• Increases in efficiency of appliances, electrical equipment, and building insulation

• Increases in the average fuel efficiency of vehicles

• Reduction in the energy-intensive production of metals and other manufacturing

Slide 10: Climate injustice

Students watch the video that explains why poor people suffer more from climate change.

Materials: Reading cards 1.5 Transitioning from coal. What makes it difficult?

Transitioning from coal. What makes it difficult?(Slides 11-14)

This activity allows students to explore the multiple perspectives in regard to energy transitioning. 

First, students are assigned into groups of 2 to 4. Each group will be provided with an information card. They read the card and answer the questions:

• Who might be the author of the information?

• Does the author support the transitioning from coal? 

• What evidence does the author provide to support the claim?

After all groups answer the four questions. Ask students the last question again: Should West Virginia transition from coal to new energy sources? If students changed their mind, ask them why. 

Provide suggestions to the West Virginia government on how to do the transition?