Developing Energy Literacy in US Middle-Level Students Using the Geospatial Curriculum Approach

Abstract

This quantitative study examined the effectiveness of a geospatial curriculum approach to promote energy literacy in an urban school district and examined factors that may account for energy content knowledge achievement. An energy literacy measure was administered to 1,044 eighth-grade students (ages 13–15) in an urban school district in Pennsylvania, USA. One group of students received instruction with a geospatial curriculum approach (geospatial technologies (GT)) and another group of students received ‘business as usual’ (BAU) curriculum instruction. For the GT students, findings revealed statistically significant gains from pretest to posttest (p < 0.001) on knowledge of energy resource acquisition, energy generation, storage and transport, and energy consumption and conservation. The GT students had year-end energy content knowledge scores significantly higher than those who learned with the BAU curriculum (p < 0.001; effect size being large). A multiple regression found that prior energy content knowledge was the only significant predictor to the year-end energy content knowledge achievement for the GT students (p < 0.001). The findings support that the implementation of a geospatial curriculum approach that employs learning activities that focus on the spatial nature of energy resources can improve the energy literacy of urban middle-level education students.

Keywords:

• Geospatial technologies
• Energy literacy
• GIS
• Science curriculum

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the Toyata USA Foundation. The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of David Anastasio, Dork Sahagian, Denise Bressler, Lori Cirucci, and Ryan McKeon, without whose help this work would not have been possible.