Improving Energy Literacy With Online Video Resources The Switch Curriculum Example

In response to years of American students demonstrating poor understanding of energy and energy-related issues, a number of groups have sought to improve student energy literacy by developing curriculum that engages and motivates students to learn more about this important subject. Although the energy documentary film Switch was not produced with a classroom experience in mind, the success of the film in connecting with environmentalists, industry, and academia supported using the documentary to test the power of film as an effective teaching tool for improving energy literacy. To test the effectiveness of Switch, we created an assessment tool to first determine students’ baseline energy literacy, and then determine whether the documentary effected a change. This assessment indicated that many incoming college students identify their Advanced Placement Environmental Science class as the place they learned about energy. The assessment results indicate that students’ attitude, behavior, and knowledge about energy and energy-related issues changed in a statistically significant way over the course of a 2-3 day learning experience. The effect size increase of 0.47 on energy knowledge supports using the documentary Switch, and similar non-partisan films designed for objective education, as inexpensive, scalable teaching tools to introduce energy in the classroom