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East Haven Teacher Uses eesmarts Lessons in His Classroom
(Hartford, CT) When a colleague recommended an energy workshop to fifth-grade teacher Chris Brown, he was intrigued.In 2013, Brown, who works at the Momauguin School in East Haven, enrolled in a one-day eesmarts workshop about energy efficiency for elementary school teachers, and the experience impacted his career. The workshop was an opportunity for Brown to improve his teaching of topics like energy, conservation, renewable energy, and efficient technologies. He was also able to connect with other educators, share lesson plans and implementation strategies, and conduct the hands-on, inquiry-based activities that he would ultimately introduce to his students.
“Often professional development isn’t applicable with what you want to do,” Brown said. “It’s more intellectual. This was not that type of workshop.”
Since the summer of 2013, Brown has attended other eesmarts workshops on climate change, recycling, and Project Learning Tree GreenSchools investigations. In addition to incorporating the information he’s learned into his classroom lessons, he’s enrolled his elementary school classes in the eesmarts Energy Savings Challenge, encouraged his students to enter the program’s annual student contest, and taken his students to the Energize Connecticut Center in North Haven for a tour.
“The program provides me hands-on materials that I can bring right into the classroom, and the eesmarts educators support me while I put these resources in play,” Brown said.
Like other educators throughout Connecticut, Brown has embraced the eesmarts program, and he, his students, and his school have furthered their energy knowledge and improved their conservation ethics by taking full advantage of all that eesmarts and the Energize Connecticut Center has to offer.
The Energize Connecticut Center, 122 Universal Drive North in North Haven, is free and open to the public. Bus reimbursements are provided to school groups. The eesmarts program provides professional development; in-class, standards-aligned lessons; and outreach. It also holds an annual student contest.
Both the center and eesmarts, which is administered by CREC, are funded by Energize Connecticut, an organization made possible by the Energy Efficiency Fund, the Connecticut Green Bank, the state of Connecticut, and funding from a charge on customer electric and gas utility company bills.
For more information about the Energize Connecticut Center, the eesmarts program, and upcoming workshops, contact Gio Koch at gkoch@crec.org.
