An Energy Lifestyles Program for Tweens: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Prior work has demonstrated that energy education programs designed for young children can influence the adoption of energy efficiency measures in the home. Here, we introduce the Know Your Energy Numbers (KYEN) program, an energy education program designed to teach an older audience of pre-teens, or tweens, about: (i) their energy consumption lifestyles, (ii) available residential energy tools, and (iii) methods to extract insights from their energy data. We also describe results from two pilots with 18 tweens from Girl Scout and Boy Scout troops living in Northern California. We report on how participants and their families reacted to our energy-based curricula, the benefits and challenges they perceived about using energy tools, and their preferences regarding the display of home energy data. We conclude with a brief discussion of the outcomes and limitations of this work before describing next steps for the program.