Mississippi Science ENV.2.2
The Standard
- ENV.2
- Students will relate the impact of human activities on the environment, conservation activities, and efforts to maintain and restore ecosystems.
Investigate and research the pros and cons of using traditional sources of energy (e.g., fossil fuels) and alternative sources of energy (e.g., water, wind, geothermal, biomass/biofuels, solar).
2026 Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards for Science · Natural Resources Use and Conservation
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students research fossil fuels and sources such as solar, wind, water, geothermal, and biomass. They compare costs, pollution, reliability, and effects on land and water, then recommend an energy choice using evidence.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can compare natural gas, wind, and solar for a town using numbers for cost, emissions, and power output. They can explain a drawback of each and name where they found their data.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may assume renewable sources cause no pollution or work equally well at every site. They may treat the lowest upfront price as the lowest long-term cost, leaving out fuel and maintenance.
How to Assess It
- Give students a one-page table of cost, emissions, and availability for natural gas, wind, and solar. Ask them to recommend two sources for a town, citing two figures and one drawback.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give groups energy cards with cost, emissions, and output data; have them build a 100-unit electricity mix within a set budget.
Ask students to argue whether to replace a gas plant with solar, citing one cost, one benefit, and one drawback from a data sheet.
Give pairs coal, gas, wind, and hydro cards plus matching methane, ash, calm-day, and fish-migration clues; race to match and explain.
Have students find the local utility's fuel mix page, then suggest one change using a local weather pattern or water constraint.
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Printable ENV.2.2 Worksheet
A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to ENV.2.2, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.
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Related Standards
- E.4.10.2
Use technology or informational text to investigate, evaluate, and communicate various forms of clean energy generation.
- E.4.10.1
Organize simple data sets to compare energy and pollution output of various traditional, non-renewable resources (e.g., coal, crude oil, wood).
- ENV.2.1
Differentiate between renewable and nonrenewable resources and compare and contrast the pros and cons of using these resources.
- E.8.10.3
Using scientific data, debate the societal advantages and disadvantages of technological advancements in renewable energy sources.
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