Climate and energy

Reprinted in full from the Topeka Capitol-Journal:

Turbine project aims to link education, real world – K-State program helps put wind energy into the classrooms
By James Carlson

A turbine whirs 60 feet above the farmland surrounding Greenbush Southeast Kansas Education Center in Girard.

Down in the school, data flows: 242 watts generating, 688 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions averted.

The three-month-old machine spins routinely, producing a stream of educational figures to compute, convert, average and calculate. The instrument was installed in September after the center was selected by Kansas State University’s Wind for Schools program as one of five recipients of the turbines. For the school, it is hands-on science at its best.

“We’re always looking for ways to enlighten our students but also to connect it to the real world,” said Lisa Blair, science director at Greenbush.

The pilot project is entering its third and final year. In conjunction with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, K-State has chosen 10 schools to receive the turbines and will choose five more next year.

The mission of the spinners is to increase educational awareness of renewable sources of power, said Ruth Douglas Miller, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at K-State. Each machine has a 12-foot diameter and produces two kilowatts, approximately the energy needed to power a hair dryer.

“It’s not for energy, it’s for education,” Miller said.

Blair and other Greenbush staff had been kicking around the idea of a wind energy project for more than year before they read of K-State’s program. Their turbine feeds the school’s simulated rain forest.

In science classes, students learn by seeing practical applications just outside their window. Real-time information about kilowatts and carbon dioxide avoided is constantly updated on the school’s Web site.

Faculty members also integrate the turbine into lessons about electricity and magnetism.

“Students love it,” Blair said. “For them, it’s fascinating and provides an educational opportunity that they couldn’t get anywhere else.”

Dan Whisler, a science teacher at Sterling High School, said he had been interested in teaching his students about alternative energy for a couple of years. He traveled with classes to wind farms in Concordia and in Iowa.

But the turbine his school erected is even better. His students witnessed the construction from beginning to end. One of those students is Jordan Buckman, a junior at Sterling.

“At the beginning, I thought, ‘Alternative energy, yeah, that’s cool, but so what?’ ” Buckman said. “But now, we’re going to need this. Coal won’t last forever.”

Coupled with the field trips, the school’s wind turbine has fueled Buckman to think about seeking a wind energy degree from Cloud County Community College, one of only a handful of institutions to offer a program geared toward maintaining the new technology.

The state kicks in $1,000 for each school and K-State helps raise another $2,000, but the schools themselves also have to pitch in.

The total cost of each wind turbine machine ranges from $4,000 to $8,000, depending on the tower’s height, said K-State’s Miller.

It is well worth it, Whisler said. “It gets them out of the textbook,” he said.

Miller sees another benefit to exciting young students about wind energy and its engineering marvel.

“Hopefully the K-12 students become my students,” she said.