Teaching Your Children About Energy Saving
Teaching your kids to conserve energy is not easy, but it can be done. It is important to show them what to do and how to save power. Not only is it the right thing to do in order to decrease your family’s global footprint, it will save your household money. Your kids will likely not understand climate change or even that fossil fuels are turned into power. Luckily there are many ways to help your children learn that the things plugged into the wall are using electricity and that electricity costs money. Read ahead to find some new ways to teach your kids about these things.
Explain the Fundamentals
Perhaps the most important thing to make sure that your kids understand why you should conserve energy is to help them understand the fundamentals of electricity. It is always difficult to explain complex things to kids, but simply making the connection between power and money will help them understand. Showing your children the wall outlets and explain to them that anything plugged in is costing money.
Helping children understand the difference between something that is powered on and working and something that is off and unplugged. Emphasize that electronics which are plugged in cost money and that non-electronic things don’t cost anything. Making this connection is key. Once your kids understand the basics of electricity, you can gamify the awareness and deepen their understanding.
Playing Games with Saving Energy
One of the most fun ways to help your kids learn about energy is to make it a game. When the kids understand what requires power, you can teach them more about it by making it fun. According to MoneyPug, an energy comparison site, one of the best ways to do this is to give your kids a choice between an object that requires power and an object that doesn’t need power. An example of this is to show them an electric shaver and a razor. Or show them a vacuum and a broom. Teach them about hanging up clothes on a line rather than using the dryer. Lastly, show them toys that need to be charged and ones that don’t need to be. This will help your kids learned the difference between things that require energy and things that do not.
Another way to make a game out of learning to save energy is to challenge the household to a competition. Everyone likes to be competitive and setting up a household challenge can provide the necessary motivation. You can create a chart to put somewhere to add in the things everyone can do to save power or reduce the usual power consumption of the home. This challenge will encourage them to try and make positive changes to reward the kids with stickers for the chart. This can become a family activity. You can also give your kids a bit of money to the person child who wins the competition. Making it a competition would be a fun way to keep the family interested.
Educational Assistance
Furthermore, a great way to help your kids conserve energy is to make it educational. There are plenty of tools to assist you in this. There are even guides to help you during each month of the year. Every season has different dynamics and you can use this knowledge to optimize your energy, whether it be from turning down your thermostat or unplugging certain appliances. Before the windy season, you can build a wind turbine. If the summer is coming up, you can install solar panels. Keeping your kids involved in these things will show them that not only is this an important issue, it will make a difference to your finances in the long run.
However you see it, teaching your kids to conserve energy is very important. It will not just enable them to become better people, it will save your household money. Obviously this is very important, but so is doing the right thing. Every country on earth needs to change the way they produce energy, we are no different. Before we completely revolutionize the energy industry, we need to start with our own unsustainable behavior. Corporate greed is a huge part of the issues surrounding climate change, but we can all do our part and save a bit of money in the process.
Plus with Earth Day coming up, it would be a good time to check out 8 Ways to Have a Kid-Friendly Earth Day.