E-Tracker – Developing STEM Skills by Tracking Home Energy Use and Weather

1. 2014 Career and Technical Education Summer Conference July 17, 2014 Greensboro, NC E-Tracker – Developing STEM Skills by Tracking Home Energy Use and Weather Phil Bisesi, ElectriCities of NC Students at Clayton High School, Clayton, NC

2. Object Lesson I need 8 volunteers! Each volunteer to be given a word Task: Spell out a sentence (that makes sense!)

3. Agenda • Summarizing E-Tracker • Why, or the motivations behind it • What is it? • When/Where? • Who was involved? • Benefits • How to replicate • If school served by EC • If school not served by EC • Schedule/Costs • Door Prizes!

4. Why did we do this? Two perspectives. • Utility perspective: Despite our energy efficiency program and customer service program efforts, customers generally don’t understand their utility bills, primarily why they go up, to the degree they do, in the winter and summer! • School perspective: E-Tracker is an opportunity to teach STEM skills with a practical application • How do we approach these opportunities? • Help students understand how their utility bill varies over 12 months • Teach students how to read their electric meter and help them understand how and the extent to which the weather influences their utility bill • Teach students how to read the Kill-A-Watt meter and help studentsunderstand what their 120 volt appliances use • Teach students how a spreadsheet can help them analyze data • Major assumption – the students will educate their bill-paying parents, and at the least, they will be educated when they become utility bill payers

5. What did we do? • Video about E-Tracker • (searchable on YouTube under E-Tracker) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gUFLCzOFl0&list=UUNZIuBrVQ2BILiEg133Q-zg

6. Door prize!

7. What did we do? • Created a folio for students (middle and high school) to track data in a written format • Created a spreadsheet for students to enter the data from the folio and enable graphing & analysis • Solicit members (cities) to participate and allow them to chose the school

8. Folio • 12 month billing use history page • House characteristics page • Kill-A-Watt meter readings page • High and low daily temperature pages • Meter reading pages • Glossary • Linear regression description • Measure the Value (expected appliance wattage/use)

9. 12 month baseline electricity use

11. Exploring Baseline kWh v. Peak month kWh

12. Door prize!

13. Kill-A-Watt Meter

15. Recording high and low temperatures

16. TempTracker365.com

18. Door prize!

19. Meter Reading

20. Spreadsheet

24. Linear Regression

25. Door prize!

26. When did we do this? • September-October, 2013 (summer/fall) • February-March-April, 2014 (winter/spring) • Each school took approximately 6 weeks to complete the project • A data period that includes both extreme and mild weather works well

27. Who was involved? • Representatives from the city and school system • Summer-Fall Period • Rocky Mount Utilities, Rocky Mount Academy • Town of Clayton, Clayton High School • City of Lexington, Lexington High School • City of Shelby, Shelby High School • Winter-Spring Period • Fayetteville Public Works Commission, Douglas Byrd High School • City of New Bern, St. Paul’s Catholic School • City of Newton, Newton-Conover High School • Greenville Utilities Commission, D.H. Conley High School Rocky Mount Academy

28. Benefits – Students • Immersion Learning – founded by Norwell Consulting • The three modalities of learning • Body (reading the meter daily, taking Kill-A-Watt meter readings) • Mind (spreadsheet use, analysis, linear regression) • Heart (sustainability, environment, Teddy Roosevelt quotes) • Big Data • Analysis skills • Career opportunities

29. Teddy Roosevelt

30. Door prize

33. Feedback

34. Student comments to “What was your favorite part of the project?” • “Being able to tell my parents why I am checking the tracker every morning” • “My favorite part of this project was impressing my family when they saw me keep it up every night for a month” • “I liked the responsibility of checking the meter each day” • “My favorite part of the project was seeing how weather can affect your energy, and of course...the cake!! :)” • “Looking at the overall data and seeing how the weather related to energy consumption” • “The experience was great, and I'm very thankful for being able to participate” • From 37 responses (3 teachers, 34 students), we received 132 written responses to 4 questions

35. Door prize!

36. Rewards • Students completing the assignment received a certificate of completion, an LED nightlight, and participated in a wrap up celebration complete with cake! • A $50 gift card was given to the student that did the best job (in the eyes of the teacher) • A $100 gift card was given to the teacher for shepherding the project

37. Coverage – Traditional Media • TV and print media have covered the event

38. Coverage – ElectriCities Blog

39. Costs • Folio - $14.25 when purchasing 250 at a time • Kill-A-Watt meter - $15 when purchasing 48 (vendor – P3 International) • Incentives • $50 for student MVP • $100 for teacher for shepherding project • Refreshments at wrap up less than $100

40. Schedule • Four meetings over 6-8 weeks • Preliminary meeting with teacher/principal/utility • Kick off meeting to distribute: • Folios • Kill-A-Watt meters • Energy Saver Booklets • FAQs • How to determine what kind of heating system you have • How to acquire your 12 month utility billing history • Special circumstances (students with meters with multipliers, living in split households, heating systems without meters like LP or oil) • Interim meeting (check in to see how things are going) approximately 2 weeks after kick off; primary emphasis on insuring students with dial electric meters are reading them correctly • Wrap up approx. 1 week after data recording is finished

41. Questions?