Wind for Schools

Wind for Schools. I’m Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report.

Back when I was a schoolboy we stressed over the 3 “R’s”…but now kids have a whole new curriculum that is getting them ready for not only their future but the worlds future. Holly Hill is a Program Specialist with the National Center for Appropriate Technology or NCAT. She explains their Wind for Schools program.

HILL: Wind for schools is a program operated by the U.S. Department of Energy Wind Powering America Program in partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and so they work with rural schools across the country installing small demonstration sized wind turbines and then using the turbine as demonstration material for incorporating wind energy curriculum into the students classrooms.

The wind turbines are small 2.4-kilowatt demonstration units, which do provide some power benefits but are more for the educational aspect.

HILL: Wind Powering America really hopes to raise the awareness in rural communities about benefits of wind energy, also to help educate our upcoming students in sustainable energy applications. We also work with local Montana State University Wind Application Center and they serve as kind of a technical resource for the project. They have college interns that come and help out with the project, they help install the turbines, they also help put together some of the curriculum for the classrooms so it helps get more of the college students engaged in wind energy as well.

Any teacher can tell you that kids tend to pick up hands on activities easier than just book studies. So far the program is confined to Montana and Idaho and Hill says schools don’t need a huge buy in.

HILL: In the past the schools were required to raise $1500 towards the project, the remainder of the funding came from a combination of sources including Northwestern Energy, which is our public utility here in Montana, foundations, various grants. So it’s part of our facilitator position here at NCAT is helping to fundraise each of the turbines at each of the schools and the cost per turbine per school is $12,500.

Hill says there is definitely room for expansion.

HILL: I think that people have heard our Governor Brian Schweitzer has said something about wanting to see wind turbines on all the schools across Montana and I think this is a program that fits in really well with that idea,

For additional information on clean energy, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.???www.harvestcleanenergy.org