Stanford
Sustainable Systems Lab

Education

Designing Your Energy Lifestyle (DYEL)

DYEL is for high school students, 10 weeks long, all virtual – with potential field trips, features weekly lecturettes, meets twice a week, has group and independent work, and has a high participant/teacher ratio. Learning objectives focus on learning the landscape of the energy sector from supply & demand, renewables and climate, to transmission to distribution, utility companies to energy consumers; practicing visualizing data, turning your ideas into research, creating and giving research presentations, and writing a research paper for a scientific journal.

Ella Min, a past participant, presents her final research project to an expert jury. The final showcase is the culminating event of every DYEL program. Research presented is a participant’s work over the entire summer. The work is based on the first five weeks of foundational learning and stems from a participant’s learned interest during the program, a passion project, or extension of previous work. See more

The electricity load shape (kWh of electricity used for each hour of a day) is a core feature of the DYEL program & is featured in the first 5 weeks of learning and practice. The material in the program is derived from published research of faculty and members of the S3L. We dive into the features of a load shape to understand our household energy consumption; the peak hour, the consumption during the most expensive hours and our vampire (base)load. 

New to the 2025 DYEL program – learning to use AI in energy & climate research. We start with understanding large language models, investigating the ever-growing number of AI tools, and learning to identify the tool/s that work best with our research. Along the way we learn some of the drawbacks of AI, consider the ethics of using AI in research and how to circumvent AI pitfalls.

For more information contact Chad Zanocco. 

Making a gift toward DYEL:

  1. Navigate to Stanford Make a Gift
  2. Direct your gift to "School of Engineering" and "Civil & Environmental Engineering"
  3. Under "Any comments or gift instructions?" write "Please direct my gift to Professor Rajagopal's Stanford Sustainable Systems Lab". 

Thank you!