February 2015
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192 Reads
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3 Citations
Reimagining energy education involves moving beyond the basics of energy use, conservation, and efficiency toward a more robust exploration of energy. This exploration should address energy access and equity, the impacts of energy choices, and personal attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors related to sustainable energy solutions. One approach to encourage this evolution is to use a learning context that inspires educators and students to delve deeply and methodically into the social, economic, and environmental interconnections of energy issues—in other words, to learn about energy within the context of global sustainability. In this article, we share Facing the Future's definition of global sustainability education (GSE), explain why GSE is an effective context for energy education, and use Facing the Future's newest energy curriculum to demonstrate how GSE can be employed to develop engaging and rigorous interdisciplinary energy curriculum. Danica Hendrickson is the Curriculum Director for Facing the Future, where she develops global sustainability curriculum and works to promote energy literacy with the NARA education team. Danica earned a master's degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Mind, Brain, and Education program and has 10 years of middle school teaching experience. danica@facingthefuture.org