Use the responses to the hinge question to guide children to one of three levels of discussion.

🩺 Children draw on everyday slogans, or invent rules of thumb, perhaps based on very limited evidence.

Every little helps.

Every thing turned off helps out: it does not matter what you turn off.

🔎 Start diagnostic and exploratory discussions using thoughts like these:

Just turn off the big things.

Turn off everything, that way you can't go wrong.

Choose carefully: turning off some things makes a lot more difference.

🩺 Children focus on a solution, which may be heading in the right direction, but only considers a limited number of factors.

Turn off the brightest or hottest.

Don't bother with things on standby or just charging.

Turn off heaters of lights when you leave the room.

🔎 Start diagnostic and exploratory discussions using thoughts like these::

Turn off everything — it all helps.

Choose carefully what to make sure you turn off.

only charge big batteries when power is cheap.

🧭 exploring a little deeper

🩺 Children consider a wider range of factors before settling on advice, and are open to the advice being modified in the light of suggestions and reasons they had not considered.

Decide what costs most, and concentrate on that.

turn off heaters and big batteries charging where you can. Don't worry about lights and charging phones.

🔎 Start diagnostic and exploratory discussions using thoughts like these::

The power demanded by a device tells you which ones to concentrate on.

Cook or heat water when it's cheapest.

Look for the watts. The things with higher watts are the first ones to turn off.

🧭 exploring in depth

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