Energy Conservation Education: When to Begin?

Since energy issues are becoming increasingly important in the U.S. due to concerns ranging from security to environmental quality, it is certainly important to develop a science curriculum early on in the schools rather than wait to discuss them in college and later on.  Energy conservation issues affect not only current generations, but future ones too.  Therefore, it is important to develop a curriculum for all students to understand the ramifications for how energy usage and their ability to inhabit a clean environment are interconnected.  After all, an individual's quality of life depends at least in part on how we all take care of the environment (i.e. whether we burn fossil fuels and pollute the air or try to keep the air as clean as possible).

One of the ways to develop such a curriculum early on is to develop a curriculum such as JEEF whose purpose "is to research and provide opportunities to experience the beauty, diversity and wonder of the natural environment."  Too often, it appears individuals may take the environment for granted and not realize the consequences of their actions on others.  By developing such a curriculum, a greater for the environment and by extension the need to develop renewables that provide for a cleaner environment may develop.  Such policies can only start, however, when there is a commitment from all of society to appreciate the environment they inhabit.  That appreciation can only grow from the seed planted in the early years of educational training.

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