E-Tracker – Developing STEM Skills by Tracking Home Energy Use and Weather

Phil Bisesi, ElectriCities of NCStudents at Clayton High School, Clayton, NC

2014 Career and Technical Education Summer ConferenceJuly 17, 2014Greensboro, NC

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I need 8 volunteers!Each volunteer to be given a wordTask: Spell out a sentence (that makes sense!)

Object Lesson

• Summarizing E-Tracker– Why, or the motivations behind it– What is it?– When/Where?– Who was involved?– Benefits

• How to replicate– If school served by EC – If school not served by EC – Schedule/Costs

• Door Prizes!3

Agenda

• Why did we do this? Two perspectives.– Utility perspective: Despite our energy efficiency program and customer

service program efforts, customers generally don’t understand their utility bills, primarily why they go up, to the degree they do, in the winter and summer!

– School perspective: E-Tracker is an opportunity to teach STEM skills with a practical application

– How do we approach these opportunities? • Help students understand how their utility bill varies over 12 months• Teach students how to read their electric meter and help them understand how and the

extent to which the weather influences their utility bill• Teach students how to read the Kill-A-Watt meter and help students understand what

their 120 volt appliances use• Teach students how a spreadsheet can help them analyze data• Major assumption – the students will educate their bill-paying parents, and at the least,

they will be educated when they become utility bill payers

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• What did we do?– Video about E-Tracker– (searchable on YouTube under E-Tracker)

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gUFLCzOFl0&list=UUNZIuBrVQ2BILiEg133Q-zg

• Door prize!

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• What did we do?– Created a folio for students (middle and high

school) to track data in a written format– Created a spreadsheet for students to enter the

data from the folio and enable graphing & analysis– Solicit members (cities) to participate and allow

them to chose the school

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• Folio– 12 month billing use history page– House characteristics page– Kill-A-Watt meter readings page– High and low daily temperature pages– Meter reading pages– Glossary– Linear regression description– Measure the Value (expected appliance

wattage/use)8

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12 month baseline electricity use

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Baseline kWhPeak Month

kWh

Peak/BaselineMulti

ple

833 1,665 2.0

483 1,888 3.9

798 2,737 3.4

977 1,836 1.9

954 2,851 3.0

1,682 2,966 1.8

432 1,898 4.4

961 3,366 3.5

310 856 2.8

Average 3.0

Exploring BaselinekWh v. Peak month kWh

• Door prize!

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• Kill-A-Watt Meter

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Recording highand low temperatures

• TempTracker365.com

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• Door prize!

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• Meter Reading

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• Spreadsheet

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Linear Regression

• Door prize!

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• When did we do this?– September-October, 2013 (summer/fall)– February-March-April, 2014 (winter/spring)– Each school took approximately 6 weeks to

complete the project– A data period that includes both extreme and mild

weather works well

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• Who was involved?– Representatives from the city and school system– Summer-Fall Period

• Rocky Mount Utilities, Rocky Mount Academy• Town of Clayton, Clayton High School• City of Lexington, Lexington High School• City of Shelby, Shelby High School

– Winter-Spring Period• Fayetteville Public Works Commission, Douglas Byrd High School• City of New Bern, St. Paul’s Catholic School• City of Newton, Newton-Conover High School• Greenville Utilities Commission, D.H. Conley High School

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Rocky Mount Academy

• Benefits – Students– Immersion Learning – founded by Norwell Consulting– The three modalities of learning

• Body (reading the meter daily, taking Kill-A-Watt meter readings)• Mind (spreadsheet use, analysis, linear regression)• Heart (sustainability, environment, Teddy Roosevelt quotes)

– Big Data• Analysis skills• Career opportunities

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Teddy Roosevelt

• Door prize

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• Feedback

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• Student comments to “What was your favorite part of the project?”– “Being able to tell my parents why I am checking the tracker every morning”– “My favorite part of this project was impressing my family when they saw me

keep it up every night for a month”– “I liked the responsibility of checking the meter each day”– “My favorite part of the project was seeing how weather can affect your

energy, and of course...the cake!! :)”– “Looking at the overall data and seeing how the weather related to energy

consumption”– “The experience was great, and I'm very thankful for being able to participate”– From 37 responses (3 teachers, 34 students), we received 132 written

responses to 4 questions

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• Door prize!

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• Rewards– Students completing the assignment received a certificate of

completion, an LED nightlight, and participated in a wrap up celebration complete with cake!

– A $50 gift card was given to the student that did the best job (in the eyes of the teacher)

– A $100 gift card was given to the teacher for shepherding the project

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• Coverage – Traditional Media– TV and print media have covered the event

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• Coverage – ElectriCities Blog

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• Costs– Folio - $14.25 when purchasing 250 at a time– Kill-A-Watt meter - $15 when purchasing 48

(vendor – P3 International)– Incentives

• $50 for student MVP• $100 for teacher for shepherding project

– Refreshments at wrap up less than $100

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• Schedule– Four meetings over 6-8 weeks

• Preliminary meeting with teacher/principal/utility• Kick off meeting to distribute:

– Folios– Kill-A-Watt meters– Energy Saver Booklets– FAQs– How to determine what kind of heating system you have– How to acquire your 12 month utility billing history– Special circumstances (students with meters with multipliers, living in

split households, heating systems without meters like LP or oil)• Interim meeting (check in to see how things are going) approximately 2

weeks after kick off; primary emphasis on insuring students with dial electric meters are reading them correctly

• Wrap up approx. 1 week after data recording is finished

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• Questions?

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