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Energy Decisions for the Zoo's Bat House

Compare three energy plans for a zoo bat house using graphs, natural resource information, and evidence about environmental effects.

Grade 4ScienceInteractive · Printable

Aligned to4-ESS3-1

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What’s included

Single worksheet
Auto-graded online
1 NGSS standard
Printable answer key
14 questions
Classroom-ready

Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 4
Subject: Science
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Matching, Circle the answer, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students trace electricity to sunlight or fuels made from crude oil.
Students distinguish renewable and nonrenewable resources by how quickly nature replaces them.
Students use graph evidence to explain environmental trade-offs among energy plans.

How to use

Read the report and examine both graphs together. Have students compare the plans independently, then discuss how different goals can lead to different choices.

Curriculum

NGSS standard covered

4-ESS3-1

Describe how energy and fuels come from natural resources and how using them affects the environment.

Preview

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Energy Decisions for the Zoo's Bat House

Use energy records to weigh fuel savings and environmental effects.

1. Investigate the Resources and Records

Read the report and both graphs. Use them together to answer the questions. A kilowatt-hour (kWh) measures electrical energy.

Keeping Air Moving for the Bats

At Willow Gate Zoo, fruit bats live in a large indoor flight house. Electric fans move air through the building, and electric lights help keepers work safely. The fans run during the day and at night. The zoo currently gets the building's electricity from a diesel generator. A generator is a machine that uses fuel to produce electricity. Keepers want to study other ways to supply power without changing the bats' care.

Diesel fuel is made from crude oil, a natural resource found underground. Workers drill wells to bring oil to the surface. A refinery processes crude oil into useful fuels, including diesel. The generator burns diesel and uses the released energy to produce electricity. Crude oil formed from ancient living things over millions of years. People remove it much faster than new supplies form. Sunlight continues to reach Earth naturally. Solar panels use sunlight to produce electricity without burning fuel.

The zoo's planning team develops three plans. Now keeps the present generator system. Roof adds solar panels to the existing roof. Yard uses a larger set of panels on the ground beside the building. In both solar plans, the diesel generator supplies electricity when the panels cannot meet the building's needs, including at night. The team estimates electricity from each source for the same example week. Building equipment and operating hours stay the same under the three plans.

The team also records environmental information. Clearing land for an oil well can remove plants used by wildlife. Spilled oil can pollute soil or water. Burning diesel releases air pollutants. Making solar panels requires materials, some of which are obtained by mining. Roof panels would fit on the existing building. Yard panels would replace part of a flowering meadow visited by insects. The second graph shows how much meadow each plan would replace. These are planning estimates, not measurements from a student experiment.