1. Find your natural gas appliances.

Inspect your home to find out which of your home appliances use natural gas, and list them. You may want to include a drawing of each appliance on your list.

You can recognize natural gas appliances by several clues:

Natural gas appliances have small gas pipes or flexible appliance connectors leading to them. These pipes are about one inch in diameter.

Older natural gas appliances have a pilot light, a small flame that is always on. However, most new natural gas appliances use an electric ignition spark instead.

Natural gas appliances have a flame inside when they are working.

Safety Note: Do not handle the pipes that lead to or from your gas appliances.

2. Interview adults about your natural gas appliances.

Ask the adults in your family when each of your natural gas appliances was purchased, and by whom. If it was your parents or other adult in your household, ask them why they chose these particular natural gas appliances. Have they been satisfied with the appliances’ performance? Why/why not?

3. Tally your class results.

If you are doing this activity with your class, bring your list to school. Then, as a group, tally up how many homes have natural gas water heaters, how many have natural gas furnaces, how many have natural gas clothes dryers, etc. Which type of natural gas appliance is most common among your classmates? Why do you think so?

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