THE BOOK IS OUT NOW!
National Geographic Kids Everything: Sustainable Energy is available now! Click the button below to go to the publisher’s website for links. Or even better, visit your local independent book store to see if they can order it in for you!
Some ideas and concepts didn’t make it into the final draft of the book, or they were edited in a way to make them more accessible to a younger audience (while the original is still very much useful for the older kids!). So to celebrate the official release date of the book, I offer up some ‘bonus extras’ for you!
If you like these, please consider saying a thanks by buying a copy of the book or buying me a ‘coffee’ (both would be nice!)
Printable Board game: Can You Keep The Lights On?
This game is a double-page spread in the book: The year is 2020 and you are in charge of your country’s energy supply! Can you make it to 2050 and keep the lights on?
A simple print-and-play game (recommend A3), using a die and anything that can act as a playing piece. Players can take two routes to 2050, a fossil-fueled powered route or a renewable-powered route. The game is designed to mimic real-life progress, opportunities and challenges (well, as best I could anyway!) with the info boxes explaining why the player either moves back, forward or miss a turn. The renewable route is challenging to start but gets easier, while it’s the opposite for the fossil-fuel route with more chances to land on a ‘climate change’ miss-a-turn square as you go on. I actually designed this before the invasion of Ukraine, so those ‘conflict’ squares seem a bit prescient… although as geographers we probably knew that impact was coming sooner or later, unfortunately. The game was tested out by my family and had the mini-geographer‘s suggestions for improvements and subsequent seal-of-approval!
This PDF you can download is the concept draft that I sent to the publishers. The final version in the book looks way more snazzy!
MINI DECISION MAKING Exercise (DME): USING SMART DATA
This spread didn’t make it into the final draft of the book. We felt it might have been a bit too much for the primary target audience (Key Stage 2, 7-11 year olds), and the pages were best freed up to spread some other bits out. However, I think data science and data literacy is very important and students should start practicing applying these concepts as early as possible. So this mini DME strips down how meteorological (weather and climate) data is used and applied by the energy sector to make predictions and decisions. This definitely works for students at the secondary phase.
‘Go Net Zero’ Answer Hunt
I wanted to include an annotated image such as this to visualise what can be done, mostly energy-wise, to move towards net-zero in our settlements. I took a screenshot from the wonderful BEIS ‘My2050’ Net-Zero simulator game and asked the creatives employed by the publishers if it was possible to come up with our own image for the book. But it was a bit too much to ask so this page was given an overhaul, visually. So, for you to download is the concept layout that I sent to the publishers, with acknowledgement that the main imaged used is from the ‘My2050’ game. Also, there’s a tiny case-study about Leiston, a village in Suffolk here in the East of England aiming to be net-zero by 2030. Many thanks to the folks at Net Zero Leiston for the help with the info!
Questions are posed on the right-hand side, and you find the corresponding number in the image to help you guess the answer.
Sustainable Energy Interactive Glossary
Each National Geographic Kids ‘Everything’ book has an interactive glossary at the back. So here’s the one I wrote for the Sustainable Energy book. Would make a for a good quiz or revision activity!
A lot of time, effort, blood, sweat and tears… but also passion and love went into writing the book and generating all the manuscripts and concept visuals. I would be delighted if you could go out and buy the book for your kids, family, friend’s kids, your school… and also to give it a rave review from where you purchased it, too! I don’t get any royalties from the publisher so all this would be massively helpful. I hope you enjoy both the book and the bonus resources here!
Thank you! All my education work via the Geogramblings’ “Life Geographic” blog is done all in my spare time, at my own cost but is free for you to access and enjoy. If you can spare a few pence, I’d be delighted if you could show your thanks by ‘buying me a coffee‘.
Geogramblings 