Understanding non-renewable resources begins with a solid lesson on what energy is and how it's used. Students should be taught the different sources of all energy, including renewable resources like the sun, water, wood, wind, biomass, geothermal and ocean tides; and the non-renewable sources like coal, natural gas, oil and nuclear. The takeaway message is that non-renewable resources supply most of the world's energy needs because scientists and engineers have designed ways to transform these resources on a large scale to meet the worlds needs. The challenge now facing the world is how to effectively harness renewable resources on a large scale. Begin with simple scavenger hunt designed to students to search the school or their homes for how energy is used. Make it more challenging by excluding typical sources like the stove, refrigerator and television.
To drive home the concept of non-renewable resources, use an activity like mining coal "chips" from cookies. Start by explaining what coal is and how it's extracted from the Earth's crust through the mining process, prepped and then converted for energy. Now set up an experiment in which groups of your students are coal miners who must supply a new building project with at least 50 pieces of coal to run it for one year. Give each group a supply of about five cookies and a set of toothpicks, their mining equipment. Explain the cookie is like the earth's surface. Ask them to estimate how long it will take to extract the needed amount of coal chips. Give them approximately half that amount: Their mining lease expires within those few minutes because of health and safety concerns. When they've extracted the cookies, ask them to take a look at the cookie, and describe the impact of coal chip mining on the Earth. Allow them to brainstorm ways to get the chips without so much damage.
Explain that fossil fuels contain carbon and when they are processed to produced energy, they emit greenhouse gases. This can lead to a process in which heat gets trapped in the atmosphere. Scientists believe that human activity is increasing the amount of greenhouse gases and that is leading to global climate change. In other words, the world is heating up. The greenhouse in a jar is an activity to illustrate these concepts. Give a thermometer to each group of students to record the temperature in the air. Explain how greenhouse gases work and then have them place the thermometer inside a see-through jar, seal it and place it in the window to get sunlight. Wait at least three minutes and then record the difference in temperature. The activity shows how air over the exposed thermometer changes because of circulating air of different temperatures, but air in the jar cannot circulate so it stays in the sunlight and gets warmer and warmer.
It's also important to teach the alternatives to non-renewable resources along with their inherent advantages and disadvantages. Making a solar oven from a pizza box can demonstrate how food can be cooked without using non-renewable resources. In addition to the pizza box, you'll need foil, black construction paper, plastic wrap, masking tape and string. Glue foil to the inside spaces and make a flap on the top of the box through which to place food. Also put foil on the inside flap. and place the black construction paper to cover the bottom of the box. Stretch plastic wrap over the opening of the box, sealing the edges with tape. Take the box outside in sunlight; it needs to be hotter than 60 degrees. Place food on some foil and place through the flap. Use string and masking tape to tie back and adjust the reflector so that sunlight is reflected into the oven, and especially onto the pie tin. Let the food cook, and check reflector angle now and then to make sure sunlight is getting inside the oven. Use something simple to cook like a hot dog. Let students discuss the practicality, the time involved in using a renewable energy source to cook food.