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Renewable & Nonrenewable Energy Training Center

Ari Raider's Training Materials · Wild Earth Expedition · Training Center 5 of 6

Renewable & Nonrenewable Energy

Part of the Coal Seam is smouldering — and once coal burns, there is no more of it. Sorting what runs out from what comes back is how the Realm switches over.

What you're training for

At the Coal Seam, the smoke is getting hard to breathe. The smoulder dies for whoever can sort every energy source into renewable or nonrenewable. Train here first; prove it in the simulation.

The science

  • Coal, oil and natural gas formed from buried living things over millions of years — coal is literally the leftovers of ancient swamp forests.
  • Burn them and they're gone — no refill on any timescale that matters to us. That's nonrenewable.
  • Sunlight, wind and moving water keep coming back — tomorrow's sunrise is guaranteed. That's renewable.
  • The test question: if we use it today, is there more tomorrow? Yes → renewable. Not for a million years → nonrenewable.

Teach it today — one jar of beads

The energy jar. A jar of beads is the class's energy supply. Each round, "spend" energy: coal beads leave the room forever; sun and wind beads go back in the jar every round. Play five rounds and count what's left. Students watch nonrenewable run down in real time — no lecture required.

Trained and ready? Prove it at Stop 5 — the Coal Seam. Free, no logins, progress saved on the device.

Enter the Realm at Stop 5

Resources in this training center

Worksheets, reading passages, flashcards and printables for this lesson are being added — new resources land here first. Get one email a month when they do, or browse the whole free library.

The hands-on half: the Wild Earth Expedition Adventure Kit puts six real specimens — real anthracite coal included — plus six Digs, six Gemlings and the Realm map in your students' hands. $19.99, or $15 a student for classrooms.

More Wild Earth Expedition training

Parts of a Plant · Plants & Erosion · Clean Water · Energy from the Sun · Renewable Energy · Protecting Habitats · Enter the Adventure →

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