Suggested Activity: Have students discuss methods for preparing and cooking their own food. Show the video, then reflect as a class.
Alberta – Science 30 Quick-Start Guide
Summary
The Switch Classroom Alberta Science 30 quick-start guide connects free lessons to Unit D, Energy and the Environment, in the Science 30 Program of Studies. This is where Switch Classroom aligns most directly with Alberta’s senior high curriculum: renewable and non-renewable sources, energy conversion technologies, and the trade-offs of meeting global energy demands sustainably.
The Switch On video series takes students inside real energy decisions around the world, from modern cooking fuels to grid expansion in Kenya to solar microgrids, examining how communities weigh cost, reliability, and environmental impact. Hands-on labs cover solar, wind, hydropower, and geothermal energy, including a heat-transfer lab that targets a documented diploma-exam misconception about the source of geothermal energy. The National Energy Issues Debate has students research and defend an energy policy position, and a media literacy mini-unit supports the research behind it.
Unit D asks students to explore multiple perspectives on energy choices. These lessons are built for exactly that: every source, real data, and the trade-offs left intact for students to weigh.
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Unit D Overview: Energy and the Environment: “Sustainable development requires balancing global energy demands with maintaining a viable biosphere. Students investigate and analyze the sources of renewable and non-renewable energy for meeting global energy needs. In so doing, students explore the need for multiple perspectives, and the need to develop energy-efficient technologies for a sustainable energy future.”
- General Outcome D1: “Explain the need for balancing the growth in global energy demands with maintaining a viable biosphere.”
- General Outcome D2: “Describe the sun as Earth’s main source of energy and explain the functioning of some conventional and alternative technologies that convert solar, nuclear, tidal and other energy sources into useable forms.”
Resources
Switch On Episode 2: Urban Grid Expansion – Video
Suggested Activity: Watch the video and have students identify the hazards associated with grid expansion in Kenya.
Switch On Episode 3: Developing on Coal – Video
Suggested Activity: Watch the video and examine why coal remains the first fuel for many developing economies, and the trade-offs that choice involves.
Switch On Episode 4: Hydropower in Africa – Video
Suggested Activity: Show the video to the class and discuss why alternative energy sources might be used.
Switch On Episode 5: Off-Grid Solar, Part 1 – Video
Suggested Activity: Show parts 1 and 2 of Building Solar Microgrids. Have students identify the cause-and-effect relationship of the solar microgrids on the community.
Switch On Episode 6: Off-Grid Solar, Part 2 – Video
Suggested Activity: Show parts 1 and 2 of Building Solar Microgrids. Have students identify the cause-and-effect relationship of the solar microgrids on the community.
Introduction to Efficiency – Video
Suggested Activity: Watch the video and explain the importance of energy efficiency and the effect of energy choices on the environment.
National Energy Issues Debate
Suggested Activity: Have students research an assigned stance on energy policy, then participate in a classroom debate
Introduction to Environmental Impacts
Suggested Activity: Review vocabulary and watch the video. Assign student groups to play the Energy Impact Dice Game.
Introduction to Coal
Suggested Activity: Assign student groups to complete the data set and the Power Generation Simulation.
Science of Solar
Suggested Activity: Have students practice experimental design with the hands-on solar lab.
Science of Wind
Suggested Activity: Assign the Wind Computation for quantitative practice with the numerical-response question format used on the diploma exam.
Science of Nuclear
Suggested Activity: Practice quantitative nuclear calculations, including energy density comparisons and half-life problems, then conduct the Nuclear Energy Town Hall Debate.
Introduction to Hydropower
Suggested Activity: Watch the video and listen for vocab terms. Assign the Quiz and Cloze Notes, then a lab activity in groups.
Introduction to Geothermal
Suggested Activity: Students explore heat transfer in the lab activity, simulating geothermal processes. Pairs with the Science of Nuclear half-life problems: the radioactive decay students calculate there is a major source of the heat this lab explores.
Developing Media Literacy - Mini-Unit
Suggested Activity: Introduce students to the fundamentals of media literacy through the lens of researching energy topics.