Summer Workshop 2022

QUICK LINKS

• Zoom room: https://washington.zoom.us/my/rachelescherr

• GatherTown: https://app.gather.town/app/M0P7A7TEThfKXFhl/energyandequity2022

• SOCIAL MEDIA HASHTAGS: #energyandequity  #ITeachPhysics

DAILY Schedule

DAY 1 - MON AUG 1 

Session 1A: Introduction

Session 1B: Community agreements + Getting started with energy

DAY 2 - TUE AUG 2

Session 2A: Positionality

Session 2B: Energy tracking

DAY 3 - WED AUG 3

Session 3A: Power plants

Session 3B: Place-based education and energy justice

DAY 4 - THU AUG 4

Session 4A: Teachers share energy lessons 

Session 4B: Approaches to integrating energy and equity

DAY 5 - FRI AUG 5

Session 5A: Teaching for social justice

Session 5B: Unsettling science

DAY 6 - MON AUG 8

Session 6A: Meet in Zoom, then move to GatherTown

• • • Overview of the week, including Week 2 document (Rachel) 
    • Accessing and posting to the Energy & Equity Portal (Sam and Adrian)
    • Review Community Agreements (Kara)
    • Introduction to GatherTown (Rachel)
    • Affinity Groups / Networking (Rachel)

Session 6B: Meet in GatherTown

• • • Choose working groups and begin working; consultants available

DAY 7 - TUE AUG 9

Session 7A: Meet in Zoom, then move to GatherTown

• • • Microdots (Tali and Kara)
    • Working group check-in (Kara)
    • Work time; consultants available

Session 7B: Meet in GatherTown

• • • Work time; consultants available
    • "Going deeper" events

DAY 8 - WED AUG 10

Session 8A: Meet in Zoom, then move to GatherTown

• • • Example lessons: Efficiency and Heat pumps (Rachel, Lane, and Rosemary)
    • Working group check-in (Rachel)
    • Work time; consultants available

Session 8B: Meet in GatherTown

• • • Work time; consultants available
    • "Going deeper" events

DAY 9 - THU AUG 11

Session 9A: Meet in Zoom, then move to GatherTown

• • • Finding community partners (Kara and Rachel)
    • Working group check-in (Kara)
    • Work time; consultants available

Session 9B: Meet in GatherTown

• • • Work time; consultants available
    • "Going deeper" events

DAY 10 - FRI AUG 12

Session 10A: Meet in Zoom for announcements, then move to GatherTown

• • • Work time; consultants available; create poster
    • Time to preview posters

Session 10B: Meet in GatherTown

• • • Poster session
    • Celebration and farewell

Gathered Resources from Summer Workshop 2022

Equity Frameworks

• R. Gutierrez, “Framing equity: Helping students ‘play the game’ and ‘change the game’,” Teach. Excell. Equity Math., vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 4–8, 2009
• T. M. Philip and F. S. Azevedo, “Everyday science learning and equity: Mapping the contested terrain,” Sci. Educ., vol. 101, no. 4, pp. 526–532, Jul. 2017, doi: 10.1002/sce.21286.

Further reading about Energy Tracking Diagrams and other representations

• Representing Energy – The site provides resources to support learners in co-constructing a flexible, interdisciplinary, energy model through the process of representing the “energy story” of diverse, real-world, scenarios.
• “Energy Tracking Diagrams,” by R. E. Scherr, B. W. Harrer, H. G. Close, and A. R. Daane, Phys. Teach. 54(96), 2016 (PDF here)
• Drawings of energy: Evidence of the Next Generation Science Standards model of energy in diagrams
• Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 020114 (2012) - Representing energy. I. Representing a substance ontology for energy
• Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 020115 (2012) - Representing energy. II. Energy tracking representations
• Energy Tracking Diagrams are actually my second favorite energy representation -- my favorite favorite is Energy Theater (PDF)! But it only works in person.
• We also love Energy Cubes (PDF) and Energy Animations (PDF). 

Socio-political videos:

These two videos are still in draft form. You are still welcome to use these in your classes and show them to others, but check back for updated versions! 

• Energy is socio-political video
• Efficiency is socio-political video

Identity

• S. Hyater-Adams, C. Fracchiolla, N. Finkelstein, and K. Hinko, “Critical look at physics identity: An operationalized framework for examining race and physics identity,” Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res, vol. 14, iss. 1, June 2018

Place-based Education 

• “Connecting the science of water to students’ communities,” article (under review with The Science Teacher) and lesson unit by E&E teacher Molly German, with Jessica Hernandez and Rachel Scherr
• Learning in Places - a robust curricular resource aimed at K5 education but with much to offer K12
• Place-Based Education in High School Science: Situating Energy and Climate Change in Students' Communities (Article coauthored by E&E teachers Molly German and Rey Horowitz with Jessica Hernandez and Rachel Scherr; PDF to be linked soon)
• Fresh Banana Leaves - Jessica Hernandez
• “Energy in its material and social context: Power plants” - article under review with The Physics Teacher
• National Research Council, Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2009. doi: 10.17226/12190. Free download here.
• How place-based science education strategies can support equity for students, teachers, and communities : StemTeachingTools (en-US) - The whole collection of STEM Teaching Tools is excellent; this one is especially relevant to our session today.

Land Acknowledgement:

• A guide to Indigenous land acknowledgment - Native Governance Center
• Learn the names of the Indigenous peoples on whose lands you live and work: https://native-land.ca

Other resources:

• How Does Your State Make Electricity? 
• Bell Hooks, Teaching to Transgress (PDF)
• Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
• Desmond Tutu perspectives on education (title TBA)
• The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey Into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
• Video from Day 5, Session A with Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

CURRICULAR MATERIALS from teachers in past workshops:

• Vicky:  Peardeck for distance learning - Electricity in California
  • Students learn about, then debate and take a quiz on, 6 different ways of generating electricity (focus on California).
  • Designed for distance learning, ninth grade class
• Molly: Water in Student Communities
  • A place-based water unit from a chemistry course in an agricultural community.
  • A multiple week unit that uses place-based learning to generate student questions about local water issues. A more traditional "properties of water" unit is then woven in to help students understand water and investigate their questions. The resources include some initial brainstorming and possible resources, some of which haven't yet been incorporated into the actual implementation (yet).
• Rey: Unit outline, Energy and Equity in Environmental Science course
  • From definitions of energy terms and energy transformation diagrams, to forms of electricity generation and energy justice campaigns in NYC.
  • This semester-long unit moves from the basics of energy, to energy use in our homes, to sources of electric power in our home state of NY. We ended with a self-directed project on one of the following local energy justice campaigns: peaker plants, bus-route redesign, and community-owned solar. Learning goals: Energy is conserved during transformations from one form of energy storage to another. These transformations include heat lost to the surroundings. Electricity use has environmental consequences that vary by type of electricity generation. Issues of energy justice are relevant in our New York City community.

• Kelly & Alexandra: Energy... Part 2 - Telling Energy and Sociopolitical Stories
  •  #EnergyTrackingDiagrams #SociopoliticalStories #SystemSchemas
  • A mini unit meant to come after a typical conservation of energy unit in an intro physics class, this set of activities challenges students to see the sociopolitical nature of physics, introduces the new representation of energy tracking diagrams, and guides students toward telling their own personal and sociopolitical energy stories for how they get to school or how they cook a favorite meal. It also includes an investigation into a nearby power plant on both the energy-tracking and sociopolitical levels through the use of system schemas.

• Jim: Connecting your actions to the amount of CO2 released.
  • How much CO2 is released because of eating corn? Beef? How is this connected to your daily life? Students make a video once they find out.
  • Students will perform any physical activity in order to calculate how much energy was involved in the activity (KE, PE, etc). Using the amount of energy they calculate they then look into how much food was required to enable them to actually do the activity. Pairs of students then do online research into how much greenhouse gases are produced in the manufacture, storage and transportation of food they typically eat. They attempt to figure out exactly how much CO2 was released because of performing the physical activity.

• Nora: Energy Generation and Transformation in Our Communities
  • Energy Tracking Diagrams, Energy Justice, Local Issues
  • This is a mini unit that bridges my conservation of energy unit and my electricity unit. It is focused on modeling energy generation and energy transformation and storage. More specifically we are going to look at natural gas power plants (the most common energy source in Massachusetts) and biomass plants. We will also look at electrical energy transformation and storage. We will look at energy justice issues including a fight around the placement of a biomass plant in Springfield where the community won after 10 years of fighting and a current fight over a substation in East Boston where some of my students live.

• Rosemary: Ethical Engineering Lesson
  • A lesson on re-designing the classic definition of energy efficiency
  • This lesson walks students through the concept that efficiency has social and political roots and challenges them to think about what they would consider to be "efficient" when ethical dilemmas in energy are taken into account.
• Lane: Heat pumps, air conditioning, energy equity and climate justice
  • Students explore the energy story of heat pumps and air conditioners then consider implications for energy equity and climate justice
  • The energy we use to heat and cool our living spaces represents a majority of home energy use in the US. Expanding access to these energy technologies is a major driver of greenhouse gas emissions but it can also be a matter of life and death during extreme heat events. In this activity students construct diagrams which represent the energy story for electric furnaces, heat pumps and air conditioners. When students have developed a scientific understanding of these devices they research and discuss equity and justice issues associated with their use in specific communities which are vulnerable to extreme heat events. 
• Plus so much more...  visit:  https://www.energyandequity.org/browse#resources