1. Renewing our Energy Choices Lesson 2
Key Stage 3 Geography Resources
Renewing our
Energy Choices
Lesson 2
Outline the overall direction of the lesson and the key skills pupils will develop, including a clear understanding of:
renewable energy;
the key requirements for a wind farm site;
decision-making skills; and
the concept of sustainability.
These lessons teach you about renewable energy and the decision making involved in locating a new wind farm.

2. Lesson 2 Locating a Wind Farm Learning intentions Pupils:
understand what wind energy is;
examine options and weigh up the pros and cons of potential wind farm sites (T, PS & DM); and
compare and evaluate which site would be best from a choice of five possible locations (Managing Information).
Set out the intentions for the lesson.
Ask your pupils to copy these learning intentions into their notes to give a clear understanding of the learning expectations from the start of the lesson.
This lesson links to the CCEA STEMworks activities. Click here to view these materials.

3. Getting Started What is a wind farm?
What might make a good location for one?
Starter:
Encourage the class to discuss what a wind farm is. Perhaps show pictures or video or discuss a local wind farm they may be familiar with.
Begin a class discussion on what would make a good location. Use questioning to encourage pupils to explain their suggestions in more depth.

4. Definitions
Working in small groups, look at a map of our local area with five suggested sites for a wind farm.
We are going to rate each site on these five factors:
availability of land;
suitability of wind;
distance from settlements;
distance from protected areas; and
ease of access.
Source a map, either digital or hard copy, of the local area on which you can locate five potential sites. Try to choose a variety of options to include hills, valleys, built up areas, protected areas or away from roads. Try to not have an obvious winner as this makes the task too easy. Leave two sites that could be possible options. This will encourage your pupils to justify the reasons behind their final choice.
This is a useful opportunity to revise map skills such as grid references or contours.
Explain each of the five factors the pupils can use as criteria to assess the suitability of each site.
Look back at your spider diagram. USE two DIFFERENT COLOURS to highlight renewable and non-renewable sources. (Don’t forget to add a key)

5. Distance from Settlements Distance from protected areas
Active Task
Rank
each site for
each factor –
1 being most suitable
Create a table like this in your notebooks:
Site
Availability of land
Suitability of wind
Distance from Settlements
Distance from protected areas
Ease of access A B C D E
Encourage your pupils to draw a table in their notebooks. Print a copy for SEN pupils. In groups, encourage open discussion on each potential site. Ask your pupils to rank each site from 1–5 in each category, with 1 being the most suitable.

6. Feedback Add up your scores for each location.
The site with the lowest score is the
most suitable location.
Tell the other groups which site you chose.
Give two reasons to justify why you
chose it.
Most
suitable
location
Following discussion, ask your pupils to add up their scores to choose the winning site. Each group should feed back their winning site and give two clear reasons why they chose it.

7. Plenary Is wind energy always suitable?
Are wind turbines a blight on our landscape or a symbol of innovation to be admired?
If wind energy is not viable, what alternatives could we use?
Homework Challenge: Wind energy is nothing but hot air: discuss this statement.
To end the lesson, encourage lively debate using the questions on the slide. Encourage your pupils see that every decision can have opposing views and that locating wind farms is far from a simple process.
Use the homework challenge to stretch the more able pupils, encouraging them to think around the topic and look at all arguments before forming their own opinion.

8. © CCEA 2018