The Safety Smart Science with Bill Nye the Science Guy :

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "The Safety Smart Science with Bill Nye the Science Guy :"

Caren Long
5 years ago
Views:

PA R E N T S G U I D E Dear Parents: What is energy? Why can t energy be created or destroyed? What is non-renewable energy? What is renewable energy? What are greenhouse gasses?

Right now, you can do one simple thing to give your children an advantage for life: teach them the importance of using renewable, clean energy whenever they can!

1 PA R E N T S G U I D E Dear Parents: What is energy? Why can t energy be created or destroyed? What is non-renewable energy? What is renewable energy? What are greenhouse gasses? Why is using renewable energy good for our planet? As a parent, you do your best to give your children as many advantages as possible. Right now, you can do one simple thing to give your children an advantage for life: teach them the importance of using renewable, clean energy whenever they can! The Safety Smart Science with Bill Nye the Science Guy : DVD shares vital tips, advice and engaging activities that go beyond the basics. Spend some time with your children working on the fun take-home sheets. Together, you can help each other learn about harnessing the clean power of renewable energy! Look what you can learn together: The definition of energy and why energy cannot be created or destroyed Real world applications of Newton s Three Laws of Motion The definition of renewable energy and how to harness it How solar panels and wind turbines work And much more! You may have the opportunity to share safety messages from the Safety Smart Science: DVD with a group of children. For guidance, see the Safety Smart Ambassador s Guide located on the DVD. To access it: 1. Insert the DVD into your computer s DVD-ROM drive 2. Macintosh users, double-click the DVD icon on your desktop 3. PC users, right-click on the DVD icon and select open 4. Open the ROM folder 5. Click on the Index.HTML file 6. Click on the Safety Ambassador s Guide Safety Smart is an initiative aimed at improving the awareness and understanding of students ages 4-14 in safety and in managing themselves and their surroundings as safely as possible by conscious action, not chance. Toward that end, UL produces multimedia public service announcements; arranges for Safety Smart Ambassador visits for students to learn from professional safety experts; hosts field trips to its laboratories where students see safety engineers at work and participate in their own hands-on safety experiments; regularly advocates on emerging safety issues, especially regarding products that may pose a risk to consumers; and supports the development of its youth safety education programs. Through its efforts, Safety Smart cultivates awareness, provides opportunities for students to learn and practice safe, healthy and environmentally friendly behaviors, and helps students learn to make more informed choices today and in the future. Do your part! Be Safety Smart! DO YOUR PART! BE SAFETY SMART! VISIT DEducational Productions (800) PARENT S GUIDE PAG E Disney

2 PARENT S GUIDE Try This At Home! The Safety Smart Science with Bill Nye the Science Guy : DVD puts educational family fun right at your fingertips. Use the provided worksheets and the suggested activities to get your whole family thinking about renewable energy! Find out what you already know about by completing the first half of the Wordle worksheet before watching the video, and finish it up after the video. Use our clues and your science smarts to see if you can solve our Crossword Puzzle. Harness a little renewable wind energy by making pinwheels for the entire family with our Winderiffic worksheet. Use the Solartastic worksheet to label a solar cell and then write a description about how it works. Get out the pencils and see if you can calculate your family s carbon footprint using the Reduce Your Use worksheet then see if you can figure out a few ways to make your carbon footprint smaller! Have your child use the Who Am I? worksheet to research animals whose lives are endangered by global warming then have your child present the research to the family. Have fun and rhyme some Energetic Slogans! Unscramble letters and discover all of the energy terms in our Word Jumble. Put your knowledge to the test. Take the Quiz and then show what you know! Eco-Cities Go to Chevron s Energyville website ( and then have children play the game to learn more about the different sources of energy needed to power a city. Once they are finished playing, ask them to answer and discuss the following questions: 1. Why is wind power one of the fastest growing sources of renewable energy? 2. How can you power a car using renewable energy? 3. Why is geothermal energy one of the most reliable and economic sources of renewable energy? 4. Commercial buildings use a lot of electric power. How do solar panels and architectural design help them use less electric power? 5. What are some ways to make your home more energy efficient? DO YOUR PART! BE SAFETY SMART! VISIT DEducational Productions (800) PARENT S GUIDE PAG E Disney

3 Wordle Before Watching the Video: Look at the Wordle on the back of this worksheet. It contains all the words that Bill Nye uses in. Some words are larger than others, which means they are used more often. Select five to ten words, and use them to write a few sentences that describe the topics you think the video will address. My sentences: 1) 2) 3) 4) While Watching the Video: Think about what you wrote and how close you were to the actual content presented. Enjoy the show! After Watching the Video: Write down three major points that Bill Nye made. 1) 2) 3) How close were you to predicting what the video content would be?

4 Wordle

5 Crossword Puzzle ACROSS 1 A word that means indefinitely reliable is. 4 Gasses in the atmosphere that reflect heat back down are called gasses. 6 The spinning Earth and the sun s heat generate. 9 Fossil fuels are sources of energy. 12 Solar panels the sun s energy to a form we can use.. 15 Currently the fastest growing source of renewable energy. 17 Geothermal energy harnesses energy from decaying. 18 The is a source of renewable energy. 19 Solar panels convert the energy from photons into. DOWN 2 can never be created or destroyed. 3 This fossil fuel is used in many vehicles. 4 This energy is generated from decaying uranium atoms in the Earth s core. 5 This is generated at dams. 7 These are used to capture solar energy. 8 Three ways to cut down on fossil fuels are to reduce, reuse, and. 10 This is a source of renewable energy. 11 These energy sources produce no greenhouse gasses. 13 The blades of this capture some of the wind s energy. 14 This means buried. 16 Biomass captures energy from the sun that is stored in decomposing.

6 Crossword Puzzle Answer Key 3 G A S O L I P A R S U S T A I N A B L E G R E E N H O U S E N O N R E N E W A B L E 6 W I N E E C R L E O T H L Y M S C A L L F O S S E P L S O L A C O N V E R T A T O M S E L E C T R I C I T Y E E T I S U N I N T E E S R T R I C E W A B R U R B I L N Y R D G R Y O W A

7 Winderiffic What you need Scissors Straight pin Pencil with eraser Colored pencils/pens/markers How to get started Cut out the pinwheel square shown above. On one side of the paper, write down each of the 3 laws of motion (one per quadrant). In the last quadrant, create a fun slogan for the Three Laws of Motion and write it down. Following the lines on the template, cut in from all four corners, leaving about 2 inches of the center uncut. Construct pinwheel Gently bend (don t fold) one cut corner to the center point. Skip the next cut corner, and bend the third one. Skip and bend until four points meet in the center. Then stick the straight pin through all four points and the back of the pinwheel. Stick the pin into the pencil eraser.

8 Solartastic As you saw in the Safety Smart Science: and Solartastic videos, solar cells convert sunlight directly into electricity. Use the words below to label the solar cell diagram, and then circle the section of the Energy Evaluation Bar that identifies whether or not solar energy is efficient (orange is not efficient and green is very efficient ). PHOTONS P-LAYER N-LAYER SUN ELECTRONS ELECTRICAL CONDUCTORS ENERGY EVALUATION BAR In the space below, describe how solar cells use the sun s renewable energy to create electricity. Make sure to include the words capture, transfer, and convert.

9 Reduce Your Use There are many websites that calculate the amount of carbon you place into the air from burning fossil fuels. This makes for an excellent math lesson as kids can graph their usage and compare their numbers to one another and to current world averages. Basic: (excellent and simple to use) (very cool graphics, students make an avatar, look carefully at the end to see the total amount of carbon produced) Advanced: (this is more college-like and is very detailed) (decent website, easy to navigate) Sample questions to ask children to generate data and discussion: Record the total tons of CO 2 you emit each year here Why does changing the types of lights you use save energy? Why does checking tire pressure on your car save energy? What does eating meat have to do with greenhouse gasses? What can composting do to save on fossil fuels? Now have children fill out the histogram on the next page by placing an X on the column where their emissions fall. What is the average of all students? What is the national average as posted on the website?

10 Reduce Your Use Emissions Histogram 0-3 tons of CO One downside to fossil fuels is that they are non-renewable sources of energy, because they take so long millions of years! to form. Another downside to fossil fuels is that burning them for so many years has increased the amount of greenhouse gasses in the Earth s atmosphere. In, Bill Nye describes things we can do to cut down on our use of fossil fuels. Fill in the table below with a list of these ideas. Can you think of any other ideas? Add them to the list! For one week, keep track of how many times you do each thing in your list. Make tally marks in the Week 1 Tally column. Then challenge yourself to increase your tally the next week. Make tally marks in the Week 2 Tally column and see if you can further reduce your use! Ways to Cut Down on Fossil Fuels Week 1 Tally Week 2 Tally

11 Who am I? In, Bill Nye names some specific animals that are being harmed by global warming. Choose one of the animals listed below (circle your choice) and do some research to answer the questions that follow: Polar bear Pika Akikiki Emperor Penguin Panda Research Questions Answers 1. Who am I? (Describe my characteristics.) 2. Where do I live? (Post a picture of your animal on the world map provided by the teacher.) 3. What do I eat? 4. How do I get my food? 5. How is global warming negatively affecting me?

12 Energetic Slogans A slogan is an efficient way to communicate a message. In, some of the messages Bill Nye communicates could be considered slogans. For example, Energy it does work for us and It s Safety Smart! Develop your own slogans related to the following topics, and then incorporate them into a work of art (e.g., a poster, poem, plaster or clay model, interlocking models, etc.): Topic Slogan Fossil Fuels Solar Energy Wind Energy Hydroelectricity Biomass Geothermal

13 Word Jumble Unscramble the letters to make words that are related to renewable energy. Use the circled letters to make a sentence that also relates to renewable energy. S E L T I A N U S A B O M S I B S A A R L S O R O P E W D I W N O P R W E E M H E T G R L A O W L N F G I O A R T W E E R Y L D O H E T R T Y I C C I SENTENCE Made From Circled Letters: Clue: The first two words are used very frequently in the program (check the Wordle!), and the last two words are what we re all about! N E Y I S Y S!

14 Word Jumble Answer Key S E L T I A N U S A B S U S T A I N A B L E O M S I B S A B I O M A S S A R L S O R O P E W S O L A R P O W E R D I W N O P R W E W I N D P O W E R E M H E T G R L A O G E O T H E R M A L W L N F G I O A R T W E F L O W I N G W A T E R E R Y L D O H E T R T Y I C C I H Y D R O E L E C T R I C I T Y SENTENCE Made From Circled Letters: R E N E W A B L E E N E R G Y I S S A F E T Y S M A R T!

15 Quiz True or False? Circle T or F 1. Energy can never be created or destroyed. T F 2. Fossil Fuels are renewable. T F 3. Burning fossil fuels has increased the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. T F 4. Renewable energy can be renewed as quickly as we use it. T F 5. Renewable energy produces greenhouse gasses. T F 6. The sun is a source of renewable energy. T F 7. Wind power is a new renewable energy source. T F 8. Wind energy has nothing to do with the sun. T F 9. Hydroelectricity is often generated at dams. T F 10. Niagara Falls generates enough hydroelectricity to power 1 million light bulbs. T F

16 Quiz Answer Key True or False? 1. Energy can never be created or destroyed. T 2. Fossil Fuels are renewable. F 3. Burning fossil fuels has increased the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. T 4. Renewable energy can be renewed as quickly as we use it. T 5. Renewable energy produces greenhouse gasses. F 6. The sun is a source of renewable energy. T 7. Wind power is a new renewable energy source. F 8. Wind energy has nothing to do with the sun. F 9. Hydroelectricity is often generated at dams. T 10. Niagara Falls generates enough hydroelectricity to power 1 million light bulbs. F

Crossword Puzzle Energy and Power. Name: Class: Date:

Crossword Puzzle Energy and Power. Name: Class: Date: Crossword Puzzle - 5.1.1 Energy and Power Name: Class: Date: Fill in the crossword puzzle by using the clues. 1 2 3 2 4 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 5 10 6 7 11 8 12 9 13 10 11 12 Across 1. These nonrenewable resources