Lesson video

Hello.

My name is Mrs. Gulliver, and I am so happy that you are here to do some geography learning with me today.

Today our lesson is called Reducing Energy Use, and it's from our unit on energy, how we power the world.

By the end of today's lesson, you will be able to explain a range of actions that you can take to reduce your energy use and why this matters.

Now, today, some of the learning might be a bit new.

That's okay.

I'm going to be with you for the whole lesson to help you along the way.

We've got three key words for our learning today.

So I will say them, and then I will give you a turn to say them.

So first one, appliances.

Your turn.

Well done.

Metres.

Your turn.

Great.

And finally, active travel.

Well done.

We'll be finding out about these throughout the lesson, but we'll just have a quick look at their definitions.

Appliances are devices used for a particular purpose that usually require electricity to work, things like fridges, vacuum cleaners, or TVs.

Metres measure the flow and amount of electricity or gas into different buildings or homes.

And active travel is ways of travelling that involves some activity from people, like walking, cycling, scooting.

Our lesson is split into two parts today, and we're going to get going with our first section on how do we use energy.

Now, without energy, our way of life would be impossible.

We use energy in many different ways and in different amounts every day.

We might use electricity to power things in our homes.

We might use oil or other fossil fuels to power vehicles and transport us around from place to place.

So we use energy in lots of different ways.

We use electrical appliances every day.

Now these appliances are devices that use electricity, like laptops, microwaves, and lights, but there are many, many different electrical appliances that we use.

So I would like you to have a think of as many electrical appliances that you regularly use.

Have a go.

Did you come up with loads of ideas? Here's some of the ideas I thought of.

So you might use an electrical oven.

You might use heating in your home that's powered by electricity, lights, hair dryers, toasters, kettles, televisions, fridges, laptops, all sorts of different electrical appliances that we are using every day, and that require energy for them to be used.

Now I've got some pictures of 10 different electrical appliances and I'd like you to have a think about which of these do you think use the most electricity to require more energy to be used.

And which do you think use the least energy.

If you want to, you could order them from which ones you think use the least energy to which ones you think use the most energy.

A little think with the person next to you.

So I thought it would be a good idea to order them from least to most.

I wonder if any of these will surprise you for those that use the least or the most energy.

So out of all of those appliances, the one that uses the least actually was a phone.

We might use it more than other appliances, but it doesn't require a lot of energy to work.

Lights also don't use as much energy as other electrical appliances, nor do laptops or TVs.

So they're all quite low energy.

They don't require a lot of power to be used.

Then we've got a fridge, so kind of medium amount of energy that is needed to be used.

A toaster.

Then we're getting to the appliances that use more and more energy.

So we've got a cooker, a washing machine, a kettle, and our heating systems, and typically electrical appliances that need to heat things up or that create heat require a lot more electricity, a lot more energy for them to work.

And here they're organised into the appliances which are quite low energy use, those that are medium energy use.

You've got the fridge, a vacuum, a printer in there, and those that are higher energy use as well.

I'd like you to have a look at these three appliances.

So we've got a kettle, a television, and a fridge, and I'd like you to order them from that which uses the least to that which uses the most electricity.

Have a go.

Well done.

The telly uses the least, then the fridge, and then the kettle requires the most electricity.

I've got another three items for you to order from least electricity use to most.

Well done.

The light uses the least electricity, then the vacuum cleaner, then the washing machine or tumble dryer uses the most electricity out of those three appliances.

Great job.

Now, we're thinking a lot about how we use energy.

And in 2022, nearly 40% of the UK total energy use was for transport, was in the transport sector.

And transport energy usage can be split into four different types of transport.

Can you have a think what might those four different types of transport be? Let's see if you came up with these four different sectors.

So we've got road transport, our cars and trucks, buses, rail transport on trains, air transport in aeroplanes , and finally, water transport on boats.

And in the UK in 2022, like we said, 40% of all the energy used by people in the United Kingdom was for transport, for moving around from place to place.

And within this transport, so within these four sectors, different types of transport use very different amounts of energy.

And you can see from this bar graph that road transport uses far more energy than the other types of transport, and this might be because we use this form of transport the most as well.

So our cars, lorries, and buses, that road transport uses more energy than any of the others in the UK.

You can also see that rail and water transport use the least amount of energy in the United Kingdom.

And then there is another type of transport that we've not yet considered because this type of transport requires no energy to be produced, and that is active travel.

So we can still get from place to place without using any energy.

And that's through using active travel.

And active travel involves ways of travelling that involve physical activity from us, from people.

We've got examples of walking, cycling, or scooting, and none of them need to be powered apart from by people.

So we power those forms of travel.

Got a check for you.

True or false.

The majority of energy for transport in the UK is in the rail travel.

Is that true or false? Well done.

That's false.

Here's some statements to help you justify your answer.

Is it A, the majority of energy used for transport in the UK is for road travel, or B, the majority of energy used for transport in the UK is for air travel? Well done.

The majority of energy used in the UK for transport is for road travel.

Well done.

Now, your first set of tasks for today, I'd like you to make a mind map of all the different electrical appliances you may use in one day.

See how many different electrical appliances you can think of.

When you've done that, I'd like you to correctly label the bars and axes on the bar chart to show the energy uses in different transport sectors in the UK.

Or, alternatively, if you want to, you could have a go at displaying this data in a different way, but suitable.

Well done.

I'm Sure you had a great go at those tasks.

So here are some of the electrical appliances that I thought of.

Oven, eating lights, hairdryer, poster, kettle, TV, fridge, laptop, phone, washing machine.

So all different types of electrical appliances.

You might have thought of similar ones to me or you may have thought of some of your own.

And then I've correctly labelled on this bar chart, the bar to represent the road travel, the bar to represent the rail travel, and the bar to represent the water travel, showing that road travel is by far the biggest use of transport within the UK.

You might have chosen to display your data in a different way.

Well done if you did.

Okay, the second part of our lesson today is thinking about how we can reduce our energy uses.

So we thought about all the ways we use energy, and now we're going to think about how we can use less energy.

So our heating, lighting, cooking, and heating water all use lots of energy, and this can be monitored by electricity and gas metres, and there's a picture there showing what an electricity or gas metre might look like in your homes.

And these metres measure the amount of electricity or gas that flow into different buildings and homes.

And energy companies can then base their bills on the metre readings.

They can work out how much energy you've used and charge you in a bill.

And normally, homes get a bill for their gas or electricity every few months.

So if we're using less energy in our houses and really our energy bill should also cost less, then we would be saving money.

I'd like you to have a think.

What do you think schools use most energy on? Have a think about all the ways we thought about how we use energy, and have a think.

What do you think schools use the most energy on? What did you think? In schools, the biggest typical use of energy is for heating.

If you think how big those buildings are and how many radiators it needs to warm up your classrooms and the halls.

So the biggest use of energy in a school, normally, is on heating.

The next biggest is on hot water, and then it's on cooking and lighting, like Laura is telling us there.

And we need to be aware of what electricity use we might go through in a typical day because then we can identify areas where we can reduce our energy usage.

So here's an electricity diary for my day that shows I use the kettle 12 times for my teas and coffees.

I used the washing machine once, a hair dryer three times.

I've used the TV twice for 20 minutes each.

I've used the tumble dryer and I've used the laptop.

And we can think about that energy usage into how much energy those appliances use so that we can see where we might be using more energy.

And we can see that the kettle, washing machine, hair dryer and tumble dryer are all high energy use.

So they might be areas where I try to use less energy.

Hmm.

How do you think most energy was used by me in this this day? And what low energy appliances were used? For most energy, it was the tumble drive that was used for one hour and 45 minutes, so an awfully long time, and that's a high energy appliance as well.

And the low energy appliances that were used, well done, were the TV and the laptop.

Now it's important that we try to reduce our energy use because it can contribute to reducing the impacts of climate change.

So we can have an effect wider than on our own lives if we try to reduce our energy use.

I'd like you to have another think.

Maybe you can make a mind map.

Different ways can you think.

How many different methods can you think of for reducing your energy use at home or at school? Have a good think.

Now I thought of lots of different ways that we can reduce energy, and I've split it into different sections.

So one section or one area in our lives where we can use less energy is through thinking about electrical appliances.

And there are lots of different things we can do with our electrical appliances to help us reduce our energy use.

The first thing we can do is not to keep appliances on standby.

We actually switch them off at the plug and that is better.

That saves energy rather than leaving things on standby.

Also, we can turn off lights when we're not in a room.

We can try not to leave fridge doors open 'cause that wastes a lot of energy trying to keep it cold by having the door open.

We can unplug our chargers when they're not in use.

That's one that I'm guilty of.

I've got to admit.

We can try and change to LCD screens in our appliances and LED light bulbs because they use less energy.

We can use sensors for lights so that lights only come on if people are moving in a room.

And finally, when we're boiling the kettle, we just put as much water in the kettle as is needed so that we're not wasting energy boiling water that won't be used.

So lots of things we can do for electrical appliances.

Now, we can also reduce our energy use through travel.

You might have thought of some ways that we can reduce energy through travel.

One way we can reduce our energy use is through doing more active travel.

Walking, scooting, or cycling short distances instead of using cars.

We can also try to use rail travel for longer distances and we can use electrical vehicles as well.

So lots of things we can do for travel to reduce our energy use.

At home, there are other things we can do to reduce our energy use.

With our washing machines or dishwashers, we can try to only use them when they're full.

And also with washing machines, we can turn them onto the 30 degree cycle, which is lower than they are normally automatically set up so that we're saving energy by not heating the water to a higher temperature.

We could also stop using tumble dryers and instead hang our clothes outside and let them dry naturally.

With the heating we could turn our thermostat down one degree so that the our houses aren't trying to use energy to heat them to such a high temperature.

And instead of using the heating, we could put on an extra layer or use a blanket.

And finally we can make sure we close doors and windows and rooms that we're using so that the heat doesn't escape.

I've got a check for you.

Which of the following are suggestions for how to reduce energy use? There might be more than one of them.

A, drive long distances in petrol cars.

B, don't leave appliances on standby.

C, walk and scoot short distances.

D, let clothes dry naturally.

Have a think.

which of those are good suggestions for how to reduce energy use? Well done B, C, and D are all great suggestions for how we can reduce energy use.

Now, I've got your final tasks for today and I've got two things I'd like you to do.

The first thing I'd like you to do is to set your own goals for reducing your personal energy usage.

Set two goals for actions you can take at home and two goals for actions you can take at school to reduce energy use.

And the second thing I'd like you to do is to design a poster or a leaflet for friends and family to show them how they can reduce their energy usage as well.

Have a go at these last two tasks.

I wonder what your goals said for how you could reduce your energy use.

These were the goals I thought of.

So at home I could, one, always make sure I switch off lights when I leave a room.

And two, use the washing machine on a 30-degree cycle.

And at school, I could make sure any unused chargers are unplugged, and I could close doors and windows in winter to keep the warmth in the classrooms. And then I designed a poster to show my friends and family how they can reduce energy use.

You might have included some of the same ideas as me.

So I've got these ideas and I split it into similar things that we spoke about earlier in this lesson.

I split it into electrical appliances, travel, and home.

For the electrical appliances, I said don't leave things on standby, change to LED light bulbs, and unplug chargers when not in use.

For travel, I said try to use active travel, use trains for longer journeys, and change to an electric vehicle.

And at home, I said don't use the tumble dryer.

Only use washing appliances when full and close doors and windows to avoid heat loss.

And you might have thought of similar ideas to that.

I bet your posters look fantastic.

So just to summarise all the great learning we've done today, we've learned that everyday activities use different types and different amounts of energy, that appliances that heat, light, cook, and heat water use lots of energy and can be monitored by metre readings.

We've learn that different forms of transport use very different amounts of energy.

Active travel uses the least amount of energy.

And finally, we've learned that reducing energy use can contribute to reducing the impacts of worldwide climate change.

Thank you so much for joining me for this geography lesson.

I hope to see you soon.