Watts Next
Today's students are the
leaders and innovators of tomorrow
About Watts Next
Watts Next is designed to deliver energy savings to your school while educating students about energy and providing multiple opportunities for STEM-based projects in the process.
Hands-on, interactive lessons are delivered by a team of energy experts who make learning about energy fun. Students analyse baseline data to determine how your school consumes energy and where the opportunities are to become more energy efficient.
Programs offered by our team include:
- Class Term Program – an eight-week program for a dedicated class of students that provides knowledge, support, and tools to identify energy saving opportunities and create strategies for change. A shortened 5 week course suited to term 4 is also available.
- Know Your Solar – technical support from our solar experts to assess the school’s solar system performance, as well as a workshop for teachers on how to integrate solar energy education and data into lesson plans.
- Teacher Workshops – workshops that address a variety of energy and sustainability topics to help teachers integrate these important themes into the classroom.
The value of our programs goes well beyond energy savings; students discover the impact that our current energy system is having on the environment and what they can do – at school and at home – to reduce their impact.
For teachers
An energy management and education program for schools that delivers energy savings while educating students in the process. The program provides multiple opportunities for STEM-based projects.
For students
Students learn all about energy in fun, interactive sessions and conduct energy investigations to uncover opportunities for your school to save energy.
Understanding and interpreting data
We start our Watts Next program with an Energy Health Check. This is a quick and low-cost way to gather the information we need and includes:
- Energy bill review including SA Power Networks tariff and metering charges
- Meter data analysis
- Solar feasibility assessment, if relevant
- Easy to understand report highlighting potential energy and cost saving opportunities
- Understanding energy data – patterns and comparison to other schools
- How much energy various appliances consume
- Energy saving opportunities
Understanding and investigating energy
In order for students to find energy saving opportunities, they need to understand how energy works.
Through interactive sessions, the Watts Next team cover energy fundamentals such as:
- Energy and its impact on the environment
- Energy forms and conversion
- Power and electrical energy
- How energy is measured
These sessions are tailored to the students current understanding of energy concepts and adapted to all year levels.
Time to turn learning into action!
Students work together in groups to carry out energy investigations and develop project action plans to deliver energy savings. In the investigation sessions, students develop a project and action plan which covers:
- Scoping and preparing for the investigation
- Discovering tools to help them conduct their investigation
- Action planning and permissions
- Conducting investigations
- Reporting findings and calculating potential savings
- Communication plan to other students and teachers
Our involvement in these sessions is flexible, depending on student needs.
Recent investigations by students include:
- How much energy do our class iPads use if we leave them charging overnight?
- How do solar panels work and what difference do they make to our school?
- Why do we have so many fridges and how much do they cost to run?
- What equipment is left on overnight and how can we encourage people to turn them off?
