Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Tune In: Advantages and limitations

20 minutes

Find Out: Unpacking the impacts of renewable energy

25 minutes

Take Action: Building benefit

5 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions and success criteria

Students will:

understand how scientific knowledge evolves with new evidence and perspectives
analyse the impact of proposed scientific solutions to contemporary issues on society, including ethical, environmental, social, and economic considerations
explore potential future career opportunities in the field of renewable energy.

Students can:

explain how new evidence or perspectives can alter scientific knowledge, using examples related to climate change and fossil fuels
examine the ethical, environmental, social, and economic implications of renewable energy projects, including the role of cross-cultural partnerships and First Nations land management techniques.

Tune In: Advantages and limitations

Step 1

Start the class by inviting your students to all stand up behind their chairs. Pose the following question to them:

There are no downsides to renewable energy.

If students agree with the statement, they should sit down. If they disagree, students should remain standing.

Step 2

Conduct a quick sense check of students' responses by asking what prompted them to sit down or stay standing.

Step 3

Take a mental note of how many students agreed and disagreed with the statement. If you have roughly equal numbers on each side, divide these 2 categories into 2 groups: an ‘agree’ and a ‘disagree’ group. Move each group to each side of the classroom and provide students with a copy of the Student Worksheet.

Explain to students that they will be brainstorming arguments for or against the statement, ‘There are no downsides to renewable energy.’ However, they will need to argue for the opposite side of what they answered! Students who answered ‘agree’ must argue for the ‘disagree’ side and vice versa.

If your class is better suited to small group work, or if there weren’t even numbers on each side, divide the agree and disagree camps into smaller groups to undertake their brainstorming. Otherwise, encourage the large groups to allocate a scribe and brainstorm arguments together. This is a good opportunity to practise listening and group work.

Step 4

This can be a challenging task, even when you are brainstorming arguments for your preferred viewpoint. Prompt students to think about the impacts of renewable energy using the 3 pillars of sustainability:

environmental (land, water, air, flora and fauna)
social (communities generating the energy and using the energy)
economic (start-up costs, operating costs, etc)

Step 5

Discuss their responses.

Find Out: Unpacking the impacts of renewable energy

Step 1

Let’s unpack this further and focus on specific energy types. Divide students into small groups and assign them 1 of the energy types featured in the Energy Factsheets (Solar, small-scale solar, wind and hydro)

Students will need to access the renewable energy factsheets on a device so that they can explore the videos and additional linked content. They will consider the ethical, social, environmental and economic impacts of the different energy types and use the Student Worksheet to record their findings.

Provide each group with the Student Worksheet, and instruct them to use the guiding questions around the environmental, social, and economic impacts to structure their research. Allow groups time to discuss their findings and fill out their Student Worksheets. Circulate among groups to provide guidance and support, ensuring students stay focused on their assigned questions.

Step 2

Have each group present their findings to the class. Encourage groups to share their insights on environmental, social, and economic impacts, and draw correlations between the impacts of different types of renewable energy.

Step 3

Now students know the impacts, both positive and negative, task them with exploring how we can get the most benefits out of these impacts.

Start by exploring the social impacts of renewable energy projects on First Nations communities. Look back over the Student Worksheets and ask students to divide the impacts into positive and negative.

You may end up with a Venn diagram with some neutral/undecided impacts in the middle.

Step 4

Explore some strategies that are currently in place to manage these impacts. The following clip outlines some of the challenges for First Nations communities, and some of the strategies in place to manage these impacts. Ask students to take note of 2 challenges and the strategy presented.

Introducing the First Nations Clean Energy Network - Original Power (https://youtu.be/b-BuSIs4Os8?si=EyklLeOjIXAbaF8H)

As a class, discuss the challenges and strategies you saw.

Literacy extension: Direct your students to explore firstnationscleanenergy.org.au. Ask them to write a short newspaper article or blog post introducing the First Nations Clean Energy Network, what they are aiming to do, how they are doing it, and why.

Step 5

Provide your students with the following link to the Future Energy Jobs Guide. Thinking about the challenges and strategies you just discussed, invite students to explore the guide and pick out the careers and jobs that would assist in implementing these strategies.

Suggested responses: There are many roles involved indirectly in these strategies but some of the main ones could be:

electricians and solar installation technicians, who install the infrastructure required in these communities
community engagement officers and Indigenous engagement advisors, who engage with communities to understand and act on their concerns, ensuring to provide solutions that are beneficial to the community.

Extension opportunity: Renewable energy is more sustainable than fossil fuels, but it presents its own challenges. Encourage students to think about what challenges they would be interested in tackling in a future career. Students can explore the Future Energy Jobs Guide and the First Nations Clean Energy Network to see which careers tackle the issues they are interested in, the education pathways they would need to follow, the skills required, and the positive impacts that people working in these roles can have.

Take Action: Building benefit

Step 1

From their original renewable energy groups, have the students break into pairs or triads. Have them choose 1 of the topics below and consider the impacts of their energy source.

local community
Australian population as a whole
local environment
global environment
local economy
national economy

From here, students can refer back to the energy factsheet or conduct their own online research to explore different strategies for creating benefits or reducing harm from this impact.

Step 2

Have each group present their research to the class. Discuss the solutions they have discovered or proposed and identify if there is any overlap. For example, could agrisolar work for wind farms and solar farms?

Learning extension: Students could conduct a GBB on the ‘solutions.’ What is good about the solution, what is a weak point about the solution, and how could we make it better? This is a great point to bring in ethical considerations. A solution might solve an environmental issue, but it may create an ethical dilemma.

Reflection

Reflect on this lesson with your students using the following questions:

Why is it important to include First Nations knowledge and cross-cultural partnerships in renewable energy development?
Society is transitioning to renewable energy due to the negative impacts of fossil fuels, however renewable energy has its own ethical, social and environmental impacts. What are some of the negative impacts of renewable energy and why is it important to think about these?

The Science and Ethics of Renewable Energy

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The Science and Ethics of Renewable Energy

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