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Energy diaries

Discover how much electricity you really use every day. How could you reduce the amount?

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You’ll need

  • A4 paper
  • Coloured pens or pencils
  • A mix of objects, some that use electricity and some that do not.
Energy diary
PDF – 100.3KB
Download Energy diary

Before you begin 

  • Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples can be found here. Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely. 
  • Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers. 

 Planning this activity

  • This activity will run over two sessions. 
  • You may want to mention to parents and carers that you'll be running this activity and that involves recording electricity usage at home. If people can't record their energy usage at home, they could do it for their school day.

Setting up this activity 

  • You'll need to gather lots of common household items. Try to include things that use electricity. You could include items that generate it themselves (such as a wind up torch), as well as some things that use electricity now but didn’t in the past (such as a hand whisk or salt and pepper shakers).
  • Place a number of objects in the middle of the circle before the session starts.
  • Make sure to have lots of printed copies of the Energy Diaries.

Session 1: Think about electricity

  1. Gather everyone in a circle and explain you're going to think about your electricity usage.
  2. As a group, discuss the objects. You could go through and name each one, as well as what it's used for.
  3. Ask people what’s the differences are between them and if they would rather use a newer, electric version, instead of hand powered ones.
  4. Ask people why they think humans used these objects in the past. Can they think of any more examples?
  5. As a group, chat about where and how they use electricity throughout the day. They should think about when they’re at home, when they’re at school, as well as when they’re out and about.
  6. Ask people to think about whether they could live in the same way without electricity. Is electricity essential and something they couldn’t live without?

Session 1: Introduce the energy diaries

  1. Give everyone an ‘Energy diary’ sheet.
  2. Everyone should take their ‘Energy diary’ sheets home. 
  3. Before the next meeting, everyone should choose a day to fill the boxes in for. They should count how many minutes they used electricity for each thing and how many times they did each action.
  4. If people can't record this at home, they could do it for their school day.
  5. If anyone’s away, you could share the diary with parents or carers however they usually communicate, such as via email or WhatsApp.

Session 2: Chat about the diaries the following week

  1. Everyone should bring their completed diaries to the next meeting.
  2. Anyone who’s forgotten or couldn't bring their diary should pair up with a friend who has theirs. They should try to remember what they can, as they might have remembered a few things that surprised them.
  3. You may want to do a version as volunteers from your own usage and make a few copies. You can then have this available for anyone who needs to look at a version of an energy diary.
  4. If they want to, some people could share their diaries with the group and read them out. You could also put all the diaries on a table for people to walk round and look at if everyone's happy and comfortable with this. 
  5. Ask everyone to think if there's anything similar or surprising when compared to their own diary.
  6. Ask if anyone had forgotten to include something that they used, but someone else's diary included it. For example, leaving a lamp switched on while in a room.
  7. Ask if the diaries made anyone want to change how they do things to reduce their energy usage.

Session 2: Reducing electricity usage

  1. Ask everyone to use their diaries to help them think of five ways that they could reduce the amount of energy they use. You could use UK Power Network’s Being energy smart video to help you think of ideas.
  2. Give everyone some plain paper and pens or pencils.
  3. Everyone should make a poster with their five ways of reducing electricity. They should design something to display at their home or school to remind people how they can use less energy.
  4. Everyone should choose five other people they’d like to share their tips with.
  5. They could think about people they live with (for example, siblings) or other people they spend time with like friends at school.

Reflection

This activity was about being responsible – doing your best and trying to do the right thing. Who was surprised by their energy usage? Did anyone use gas (or other forms of energy) as well as electricity? Why is it important to try to use less energy? The difference that one person makes can feel small. Is it still important that each household tries their best?

This activity was also about helping the community. How does reducing electricity usage make the world a better place for everyone? How could people remind others to use less electricity? People could think about the people they live with, the people they see at school, or other people who use their meeting space, for example. What would happen if every community were more responsible with energy use?

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

Music and films

Make sure music and films are age appropriate for the youngest person present.

  • It’s OK for people to round their times up or down if it’s too tricky to count the exact seconds and minutes.
  • If people find it simple to come up with five ways to reduce energy, they should think about other situations. For example, what about when they’re on holiday? What about at school? What could an adult in a specific job do, for example, someone who works in an office or someone who’s a teacher?

Make it accessible

All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.

Scouts Environmental Conservation Activity Badge
Cubs Environmental Conservation Activity Badge

People could turn their five ways of reducing energy usage into a speech or story, full of plenty of real-life examples of where electricity’s being used unnecessarily and where it’s desperately needed. They could share these more widely.