Fossil Fuels

Fossil fuels are a popular topic these days when we discuss environmental issues. Fossil fuels are non-renewable energy sources that we are running out of. This will cause prices to rise and animosity and stress to become more prevalent.

The three types of fossil fuels are natural gas, oil, and coal. We use these fuels because they are cheaper and more effective than the alternatives at this point. People knew as far back as the Industrial Revolution that these fuels wouldn’t last forever and that they weren’t good for the atmosphere, but it wasn’t their problem at the time.

The real issue of fossil fuels isn’t so much that we will run out of them someday, but that they are terrible for the environment. Burning fossil fuels is responsible for greenhouse gas accumulation, acidification, air pollution, water pollution, damage to land surface and ground-level ozone. Pollutants, such as sulfur and nitrogen, are naturally present in fossil fuel structures are released. Coal is the number one contributor of emissions to the atmosphere, followed by oil, which may end up in soil or water in raw form. Natural gas does not release as much carbon dioxide because of its methane structure.

I have done lessons on fossil fuels in my classroom. I focus on the terms “renewable” and “non-renewable” and have pictures of each on my SmartBoard. I have students drag the pictures into the appropriate categories. I teach them about alternate forms of energy (renewable) in the forms of wind and solar energy. We basically get all our energy from the sun, so it’s a matter of harnessing that energy.

A lesson we can do from that point is a Pro and Con of the types of energy. As bad as non-renewable energy sources are, we use them for a reason. But the cause and effect lessons won’t be lost on 4th graders: if we have a limited supply of something and keep using it, what do you think will eventually happen? We read recently about the cocoa bean being in shorter supply because of diseases to trees in South America. My students know a bit about supply and demand and understand that if there isn’t a lot of something, the prices go up. Last year, we read about electric cars in Time for Kids. I asked them if they noticed how their parents reacted every time they had to get gas. They all responded the same way; how their parents were constantly complaining about gas prices.

As an elementary school teacher, it’s all about creating awareness of issues like this and tying it in to how it affects the kids’ lives. I said to them, “you might not be the one paying for gas now, but the more money your parents spend on gas, the less money they’ll have to spend on you.”

source: http://www.lenntech.com/