Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Tune In: Australia’s energy history

20 minutes

Find Out: Challenges in the energy industry

25 minutes

Take Action: Energy career pathways

5 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions and success criteria

Students will:

examine the trends of Australia’s energy industry
explore future directions for the energy industry.

Students can:

explain the four dimensions of sustainability in relation to the energy industry
describe the challenges and opportunities in the energy industry
identify careers in the energy industry that are working towards sustainable solutions.

Tune In: Australia’s energy history

Step 1

Ask your students the following questions.

When do you think Australia first started using electricity?
When do you think electricity was widely available in homes?
How do you think this electricity was generated in early times?

Record their responses on the board as you discuss.

Step 2

Use the Visual Explainer to walk your students through the growth of the energy industry in Australia.

At the end, revisit their initial responses. How close were they? What did they learn from the visual explainer that was most surprising?

Suggested responses:

Electricity was widely available in Australian Homes across all states from about the 1960s (Source)

Extension opportunity: You might like students to take a deeper dive into the history of electricity use in Australia on the back of this activity. Encourage students to create a timeline of their own with the different breakthroughs that occurred during the electrification of Australia, focusing on important milestones, how the electricity used was generated and the challenges faced to make the use of electricity widespread throughout the country.

Step 3

Explain to students that you will now look at the current state of energy generation in Australia. Using the last slide in the Visual Explainer, show students the chart of energy production and ask them the following questions:

What trends can you identify in this chart?
What surprises you most about this chart?
What do you think this chart will look like in 10 years time? In 50 years time?

Find Out: Challenges in the energy industry

Step 1

The trends in Australia show an increase in renewable sources of energy. Ask your students:

Why is Australia moving towards more renewable energy sources?

Ask your students to frame their answers in terms of the four dimensions of sustainability (environmental, social, economic and political). There is space in the Student Worksheet for students to record their responses or you could conduct this as a class brainstorm on the board. Refer to the Teacher Content Information for some suggested responses to help guide your discussion.

Note: If you completed the previous lesson in this unit with your students, take this opportunity to revisit your definitions of renewable and non-renewable energy.

Step 2

In the previous lesson in this unit, Australia’s Energy students identified the impacts of energy production on the four dimensions of sustainability and created infographics to communicate this information.

If you have completed this lesson, invite students to get out their infographics and divide them into small groups with a range of energy types in each group. Have the students read each other’s infographics, look at the impacts of that energy source, and identify what challenges need to be overcome in the future of that form of energy production to reach sustainability.

Ask students to consider what they already know and see if they can propose a solution to any of these challenges.

Note: If you didn’t complete the last lesson, you might like to complete this task using the Energy Factsheets from the previous lesson

Take Action: Energy careers

Step 1

Ask students to choose one of these challenges that interests them. Students will then research a career pathway that contributes to designing a solution.

For example, if students looked at creating a reliable transmission grid to distribute renewable energy, a career in designing a solution could be a Transmission System Engineer. These people design high-voltage networks, cables and safety systems to get electricity where it needs to go safely. A career involved in implementing the solution could be a transmission linesperson who works in constructing new powerlines and substations or even a drone operator in charge of stringing transmission lines!

You might like to show your students this video to illustrate the range of possibilities within the industry.

Kaban drone stringing - Powerlink Queensland (youtube.com/watch?v=xXAmKdFDdOk)

If students are having difficulty thinking about potential challenges, you could provide them with the list below:

Designing solutions for challenges

Now we can make the energy, how do we make sure the supply is consistent? - Energy storage and transportation design.
As we move away from nonrenewable sources of energy, what will happen to the people and communities who rely on these for employment? - Transitioning a workforce from renewable to non-renewable energy.
Where will we find the experts who can set up and maintain renewable energy sources? - Tertiary education and training opportunities to build a skilled workforce.
How do we explain to people why we are switching to renewables and make sure we have their support? - Science communication experts to create social and political sustainability.

Contributing to solutions

Who looks after and maintains these systems? - Mechanical and electrical technicians (blade, solar farm, wind, hydro).
Who designs and plans the infrastructure? - Engineering (Hydro civil engineering, power systems engineering, structural engineering, etc.).
Where do we get the resources and assets we need for set up and ongoing production? - Resource procurement.
How do we make sure that we are sustainable? - Environmental scientists, human resource managers, marketing and sales.

Step 2

Individually or in pairs, give students a link to the Future Energy jobs Guide. Students would also benefit from being able to research local tertiary educational institutes and their course offerings online.

Students should complete the Student Worksheet and create a career pathway using these resources. They will identify the role they think would best suit them to help tackle their chosen challenge and work their way backward, looking at job opportunities, qualifications required, and opportunities in high school to set them up for success.

Reflection

As a class, discuss:

What career opportunities did you learn about today that you either didn’t know existed or didn’t realise were a part of the energy industry?
What steps towards energy sustainability could we begin making in our daily lives? (This question and the student's answers could be used as a segue into the next part of your energy sustainability unit)

Australia’s Energy Future

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Australia’s Energy Future

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