Conservation

Taking action to reduce light pollution

Exploring actions to effectively reduce light pollution in our communities.

Grade

Duration

1.5 hours

Type

Class discussion

Overview

In this activity, students explore sources of light in their communities and think about how light scatters in ways that can cause light pollution. Students collaborate to use criteria to propose three useful actions that can most significantly reduce light pollution in their own communities.

Instructions

What you'll need

Digital projector and screen
Student electronic devices with access to internet
"Exploring actions to reduce light pollution in my community" worksheet
"How light scatters creating light pollution and skyglow" handout

Provide each student with a copy of the "Exploring actions to reduce light pollution in my community" worksheet.
Prompt your students to suggest sources of light energy at night that might contribute to excess light. For example, your students might contribute ideas such as: streetlamps, outdoor house lights, or car headlights.
Ask students to suggest what actions could be used to reduce light pollution at night. Invite students to note their ideas on their activity sheet.
Encourage students to share their initial thinking and use their ideas to co-create or present the criteria for an effective action to reduce light pollution. For example, criteria for effective actions may include:

The action does not negatively affect community safety (e.g., eliminating street lights could contribute to an increase in traffic accidents).
The action reduces the amount of wasted light energy.
The action helps reduce the impacts of light pollution on living things.

Display the criteria for an effective action to reduce light pollution for use throughout the rest of this activity.

Organize your students into small groups and provide each group with a copy of the "How light scatters creating light pollution and skyglow" handout. Ask groups to use ideas from this source to suggest and rate actions that could effectively reduce light pollution in your community. Prompt groups to note their ideas on their activity sheet, reminding them to use the criteria to guide their thinking (note: additional information and sources about actions to reduce pollution can be found in the "Extensions and modifications" section of this activity).
Guide students’ attention back to their initial thinking from the beginning of this activity and invite them to reconsider their decision: Which three actions would most effectively reduce light pollution most significantly in their community?
Conclude the activity by inviting your students to suggest how actions that effectively address the causes and effects of light pollution could be connected to important concepts like conservation and sustainability.

Modify or extend this activity

Consider extending this activity by inviting groups to create a visual, dramatic, or written description of how their proposed action will significantly reduce community light pollution. Encourage each group to think about and include how their plan meets the criteria for a useful action plan.
Research actions to reduce light pollution from various source. For example, students may discover that changing the design of streetlamp covers can reduce the amount of light pollution.

Here are a few websites that might help your students get started:

Curriculum Fit

Science 8

Big idea

Energy can be transferred as both a particle and a wave

Content

Light: properties, behaviours, and ways of sensing

Curricular competencies

Questioning and predicting

Demonstrate a sustained intellectual curiosity about a scientific topic or problem of personal interest

Processing and analyzing data and information

Experience and interpret the local environment
Use scientific understandings to identify relationships and draw conclusions

Evaluating

Consider social, ethical, and environmental implications of the findings from their own and others’ investigations

Applying and innovating

Contribute to care for self, others, community, and world through personal or collaborative approaches
Co-operatively design projects
Generate and introduce new or refined ideas when problem solving

Communicating

Communicate ideas, findings, and solutions to problems, using scientific language, representations, and digital technologies as appropriate

Assessments

Throughout the activity, consider how well students:

Contribute to respectful group discussion
Determine and provide reasoning for useful actions to significantly reduce community light pollution that meet the criteria for useful actions
Work together as a group to share their thinking and reasoning with the class

Teaching Notes

This activity assumes students have a working knowledge of light pollution.

To learn more about light pollution please visit the following websites:

To learn more about solutions for reducing light pollution, please visit the following websites:

BC Hydro's Street light replacement project

BC Hydro owns and maintains over 90,000 street lights attached to poles located across the province. We've replaced these with energy-efficient light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to ensure compliance with new federal regulations that require all light ballasts containing Poly-Chlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) be removed by the end of 2025.

In 202 we began replacing lights in the first communities and completed the replacement in all communities in late 2023.

These new street lights will help improve public safety in your community by increasing the visibility of sidewalks and roads at night, as well as help reduce light pollution. LEDs also last longer and require less maintenance. To learn more check out Street lighting services.