on 22/06/2026
Written by Erica Gibbs
It’s a freezing June day – you get home after school, flick on the lights and pop your laptop straight on charge. Might as well get the heater going too before you jump in a hot shower so the house is warm by the time you start to cook dinner…
This is everyday life, especially in the depths of winter. We think about our house, our own energy bills, keep tabs on our solar batteries and usage. But how do our individual behaviours contribute to the nation’s habits when it comes to electricity consumption? And where does that electricity even come from?
A favourite concept of mine when teaching science was the law of the conservation of energy; energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred or transformed. That same concept applies to the National Electricity Market (NEM) which runs from SA to Qld.
Visualising generating and supplying electricity, let alone the scales involved, however, is not easy. While electrical appliances become more efficient, overall usage is only increasing with the rise of electric cars, personal technology, data centres and so on. As Australia shifts to renewables, younger generations will become the cornerstone of this transition and that requires making the complex science behind it meaningful and accessible.
Snowy Hydro and our Snowy STEM Academy, have been designing a framework to address this.
Our Energy Literacy Syllabus (ELS) is structured into four modules, which act as tools for a sustainable future. Learners can develop skills through five levels of literacy across four scaffolded modules. A key aim of the ELS is to highlight practical, classroom-relevant ideas that use models and data to make energy systems visible with multiple entry and exit points to suit every learner.
Bringing energy concepts to life
Launching with Module 1: Foundations of Energy Understanding to Australia’s Energy System The Energy Transition and Sustainability and culminating in Module 4: Empowered Participation, which extends beyond STEM careers to other professional and trade careers that support reliable energy.
The first unit of the first module was introduced at the SASTA’s annual conference in April this year using a unique activity to model pumped hydro energy systems. Available in ACv9 aligned units for Year 5 & 6, Year 7 & 8 and Year 9 & 10 classrooms, the units centre around a new game launching soon! This game simulates the transformation of energy from potential to kinetic and electrical energy.
Using gameplay as a wombat racing up and down ski runs, students experience how forces act on objects and how energy is transferred to turbines to generate electricity that they “bank”. By manipulating this simulation of a real-world phenomenon, students can visualise an otherwise difficult to learn concept.
Through other supporting teaching activities, students use the game to generate enough electricity to meet targets that grow from powering a few lightbulbs for a day to powering every home in Australia for a year.
To do this, they “bank” energy they generate in order to upgrade their energy efficiencies, the height they start from and the number of power stations they go through, reinforcing the fact that it takes work and an investment of energy to generate electricity. Contextualising the scale of electricity needed for an individual appliance to an entire nation is a core transferable concept across many scientific phenomena that is embedded in this learning tool and these designed units.
These comprehensive units are designed to be fully classroom-ready. They are mapped to not only science understanding outcomes, but also cross-curriculum priorities and general capabilities. For primary years, the units genuinely embed other key learning area outcomes to maximise cross-curricular efficiencies and capitalise on valuable teaching time. With built-in scaffolding and extension opportunities, the lesson plans ensure you can meet your students exactly where they are, empowering the next generation to be energy literate Australians.
Snowy is a company owned by Australians, for Australians and this is why all of our resources are free to teachers and students. While we love our industry, we also recognise that not every individual will be involved in a STEM career within the transition, but there is great importance in arming them with knowledge to empower their participation.
Be the first to know when the new game launches by filling out this form. You can also find out more about the Energy Literacy Syllabus including the free download of all new unit plans and resources, or check out our other free resources on the Snowy STEM Academy website.
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