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Simply helpful

Fun ways to get kids involved with saving energy

Creating sustainable habits for the future 

3 MIN READ, BY Simply Energy
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Getting our kids involved with saving energy creates sustainable habits for their future and can help reduce your carbon emissions at home. Just a few simple changes within your household can create a lasting impact – potentially saving you money and resources.

Where Does Our Energy Come From?

The energy we use is a precious resource; teaching children where energy comes from is the first step towards getting them to reduce their consumption. Kids will instinctively be more motivated to help a cause they find easy to understand. 

Learning should be as engaging and interactive as possible; quizzes, facts and analogies can turn complicated subject matter into an enjoyable and educational experience. Describe how taking responsibility for their energy use plays a part in making a healthier and happier planet for us all. 

Fun Energy Saving Tips for Kids

Some healthy competition can make anything more exciting – so why not reinforce their knowledge by hosting a quiz? This can involve siblings or friends, and a prize for the winner helps to up the stakes. 

Encouraging everyday participation can be just as simple; consider investing in smart devices or energy saving devices and utilise their voice control features. Controlling a light using voice commands is a novel alternative to flicking a switch, especially for little hands that can’t quite reach the switch just yet. This is an easy way to reduce energy usage and reduce the friction that often comes while building a positive habit.

It’s not just lighting that consumes a lot of energy in the average house. Consumption occurs in many different places throughout the home; a tap left on during toothbrushing, a hot water cycle while washing clothes, a TV left on standby or a fridge door left open for too long while growling bellies scan what’s inside.  Identifying these common energy wasters makes it easier to combat them and conserve energy in the home. Appoint a weekly ‘Energy Monitor’ in your household who will be responsible for checking these daily. If the checklist is completed each week, the monitor receives a reward. 

Schedule Energy Free Time for the Whole Family

With more Australians working and learning from home than ever before, taking time away from our devices is increasingly crucial for our health. Schedule time every week to switch off and disconnect. Play board games or start a family book club to encourage creativity and connection, outside of the digital world - a positive for your health and your energy bill.

Get Outside and Connect with Nature

In addition to decreasing your energy consumption at home, getting outdoors cultivates a greater connection with nature. Try planting a veggie garden in your backyard – it provides opportunities for great teachable moments and creates a tangible way to see energy in action. 

Just like the vegetables in the garden use the power of the sun to grow, we can use the power of the sun to create electricity. This can be demonstrated at home whether you have solar panels or not, simply by using a string of solar powered fairy lights. The light from the sun is absorbed through a photovoltaic cell, ready to convert into energy. 

After a sunny day, the lights will shine brightly for several hours, as they have absorbed plenty of energy, but a gloomy day in winter likely won’t have the same results. The cell must also be placed in the optimal position to absorb the sunlight – try brighter spots and shadier spots to demonstrate this. These fluctuations are a small-scale example of what a larger system goes through; a perfect example to show that even if our energy comes from a renewable source, we should still be mindful of our consumption. 

How to Start Saving Energy?

Change doesn’t happen overnight, and some habits can be harder to break than others. Living a sustainable life and being mindful of your energy consumption is an ongoing journey. 
Taking small steps towards a more energy efficient life is the best way to make a change and inspire the next generation to do the same. 

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