Energy heats our houses and gives us electricity. We use energy to heat water for hot showers and baths, to wash and dry our clothes, to heat our food on the stove or in the oven, and to keep our food cold in the refrigerator. Every day we use a lot of energy and electricity in our houses to live in them. Yet sometimes we don’t pay attention and we waste energy and electricity.
Don’t be an energy hog and waste energy at your house. Learn how to be an energy hog buster. Save energy, help your family save money, and take care of our Island!
Energy Hog Buster!
Go to http://www.energyhog.org/childrens.htm
Become an Official Energy Hog Buster:
- Learn good energy-saving habits
- Help your family save money and reduce energy bills
- Help protect our island and our earth
When we let energy out of our homes we are wasting it. Every day we use electricity and we could try harder to turn it off or use it for big purposes. Energy hogs in our homes are when we turn on lights when it’s midday, leave the fridge door open, or turn the T.V. speakers up all the way. The way you can get rid of energy hogs is to turn off lights when you aren’t using them, close the fridge door and make sure it closes all the way, and turn the T.V. speakers down to a reasonable volume. Pretend that you had your T.V. on for a day. Think how much electricity you would lose, especially if you weren't watching it. So save energy by turning it off. Don’t be an energy hog!
(Max and Chandrika, Charter School)
Try the Home Scavenger Hunt at your house. See top of this page.
Is your home an Energy Hog? Take the Home Survey at the top of this page.
Go Car Go
We use cars to go all around Martha’s Vineyard and to go off-island on the ferry. Kids ride school buses to school. Although we can use VTA buses to get around, most people still use their cars. Yet our cars, buses, trucks and school buses pollute and use a lot of gasoline. Are there ways we could pollute less?
When cars were first invented, many people experimented with different kinds of cars and fuels. They debated which was the best. Finally, everyone settled on using gasoline for cars, because there was plenty available in our own country. Today, we are again debating and experimenting about the best type of car and fuel for our cars, trucks, school buses and buses because:
What do you think? Some people on Martha’s Vineyard are experimenting and using biodiesel fuel (see top of page). Some people like making fuel on the island. That way we don't have to ship over so much gasoline on large trucks that have come from far away.
What car will you drive? (see top of page) Read about alternative fuels and cars and think about what might work best in the future on Martha’s Vineyard.
Activities
Visit Roofus’ Home
Go to top of page and try the Rock and Roll Show, Fuels Energy Expo and Transportation Debate.
Electricity
We need electricity to make our island work. More than 99% of the electricity we use on Martha’s Vineyard is made at power plants in New England and sent through four underwater cables to East Chop and West Chop on the island. Electricity travels through wires to all our houses. Each house has a meter to measure the amount of electricity we use each month. Natural gas, coal and oil are shipped across the country as the fuel to make electricity at these power plants in New England. A nuclear power plant also makes electricity in New England. Each hour of the day and night, the electricity that is made at some of these plants is sent to our island. We might get electricity from different plants on different days, but we get electricity continuously.
Right now, we rely on this nonrenewable energy to supply almost all of the electricity for our island. If we can’t get the electricity from off-island for some reason, we have five diesel generators on-island to make electricity temporarily. 
Electricity is made the same basic way:
- When natural gas, oil or coal is burned in a power plant, the fire is used to heat up water in a big boiler.
- Once the water begins to boil, the water changes to steam and rises.
- The force of the steam spins the blades on a turbine
- The blades spin a long shaft
- The shaft turns the generator
- The generator makes electrons move and electricity flow through a wire.
Inside the generator, copper wire is coiled around the turbine shaft and surrounded by two huge magnets. As the shaft spins, the magnetic fields push and pull electrons in the wire, making them move. Moving electrons make electricity, which flows through a wire to our house and school. Electricity can also be made with renewable energy, instead of natural gas, oil, coal or nuclear energy. Energy Saving Light Bulbs
Most people on Martha’s Vineyard use a kind of light bulb that was invented many, many years ago. These incandescent bulbs make more heat than light. So we use much more electricity to light these bulbs than we need to.
An inventor noticed this and thought about a way to invent a light bulb that did the opposite. This kind of light bulb is called a compact fluorescent. It makes much more light than heat. This way, it lasts much longer and saves energy.
There are lots of ways to save energy and one way is to use energy saving light bulbs. These light bulbs save you lots of money on your electric bill. My teacher, Miss Cici and her husband, used to spend $185.00 a month on their electric bill. After changing over to the energy efficient light bulbs they now spend about $140.00 a month. If everyone did that, I’m sure people would be much happier. Don’t be an energy hog. Buy energy efficient light bulbs!
(Oliver, grade 3, Chilmark School)
Go to the top of this page and learn more about light bulbs with these activities:
Facts of Light
Light Bulb presentation
