Editor’s Note: This is a guest post provided by the curriculum team at NEED.ORG. NEED.ORG provides many free, standards-aligned resources to teachers and students related to energy consumption and conservation. They also provide training and support around these topics. Curriculum Trak is happy to promote their efforts to our community and to provide a direct link to their resources through the Quality Content resources area in each Curriculum Trak account. You can also find their previous post here.
Most teachers have already started the average 180-day countdown that makes up a school year and brings one back to fun in the sun, summer freedom. We at the NEED Project want to help make your school year such a success that it seems to fly by! Since 1980, our philosophy has been about “Kids Teaching Kids” and providing teachers with the curriculum and materials that help spark student’s interest and engage them in inquiry-based, hands-on, and exciting learning activities about energy, all while enhancing student leadership skills. 95% of teachers believe that NEED materials increase student performance on state tests, and students showed a 41% increase in energy knowledge after using NEED’s curriculum. The requirements of state standards, Common Core, and the Next Generation Science Standards have been crafted into NEED’s curriculum.
By visiting www.need.org/calendar_list.asp, you can see where our upcoming, FREE to attend, energy workshops are, all over the nation. These workshops provide teachers with great professional development opportunities with comprehensive, objective information about the scientific concepts of energy. Energy education doesn’t have to sound intimidating or boring; our knowledgeable and passionate presenters make sure of that!
NEED also hosts sessions at several state, regional, and national science teachers’ conventions and conferences throughout the year on various K-12 energy topics. We hand out free curriculum, infobooks, and opportunities to win science of energy kits.
Whether it’s your first year delving into an energy unit, desire to learn more, or looking for new ways to engage your students, the NEED Project is dedicated to helping teachers succeed in their classrooms, after-school programs, and multi-disciplinary teams.
