Riverside School Solar Challenge
Cabot School Green Schools Project
Waits River School Electricity and the Environment
Lyndon Town School Electricity and the Environment

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Riverside School Solar Challenge Riverside Students Take The Vermont Solar Challenge (Caledonian Record, May 30, 2001)

 

On a quest to provide real world science, math and technology experiences for students, Riverside School science teacher Sara Neilon and headminstress Kay Johnson worked with the Vermont Energy Education Program’s (VEEP) Andy Shapiro and Fran Barhydt, the individuals responsible for developing the Vermont Solar Challenge.

The challenge requires students to work as members of a team to design, build and test a solar hot water collector that increases the temperature of 400 cc (12 ounces) of water using the sun’s energy. The maximum collector area open to the sun was one meter square. During the final test of the collectors, students record the temperature of the water every five minutes for at least one hour.

Later, in class, they examine the data to identify the solar concentrator that achieved: 1. The highest temperature rise of the water; 2. The highest temperatures rise per square meter of collection area, the highest efficiency; and 3. The highest temperature rise per dollar spent, the most cost effective.

Before introducing the Vermont Solar Challenge to her students, Neilon’s sixth-, seventh- and eight-grade students began the challenge by holding mini-lectures and hands-on learning stations. They investigated how heat travels by conducting convection and radiation; and insulation qualities of different materials. They learned that black containers absorb more heat than non-black containers. They focused beams of light on a container and learned that the curved shape that resulted was a great shape for concentrating the sun’s energy. They searched the Web for information and designs about solar concentrators.

Students applied what they learned to design a solar concentrator out of paper and lined with aluminized mylar. This model enabled students to observe if light was concentrating on a focal point and to make adjustments to make the concentrator more effective. Designs were checked; building permits were issued and construction began in the barn at the school.

Teams transferred the ideas of their small mock-ups to full-sized solar concentrators made of cardboard lined with mylar. Water containers were made out of bottles or cans.

Seventh-grader Haley McGill said, “This project was really fun and I really enjoyed working on the solar collectors. We had the idea of using a black balloon as our container. This worked really well because it was thinner and blacker than other containers, it was closed up so it kept in the heat better and it could fit and expand anywhere.”

“The experience was absolutely fascinating,” said eighth-grader John Caiamaio. “One day everyone could use this technique to heat food and liquids.”

Educators interested in participating in a Vermont Solar Challenge workshop and follow-up support are encouraged to contact Barhydt at 626-8346 or Shapiro at 229-5676.

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Cabot Schools Green Schools Project Lights Out for Physics Class By Brent Hallenbeck Burlington Free Press, Feb 18, 2002

 

Cabot - Charles Wanzer’s interest in energy conservation goes back to his childhood, when his father reminded him time and time again to turn off the lights when he left a room.

The lesson stuck with Wanzer, a math and science teacher at Cabot School. Thanks to his efforts, students, teachers and office workers at the tiny rural school are turning off lights, computers and just about anything that needlessly sucks up electricity.

Wanzer’s high school physics students for the third-straight year are working on a project to find little ways to make the 240-student campus more energy efficient. Last year’s class found more than $5,000 in savings, from shutting down idle office computers to removing bulbs illuminating the school’s vending machines.

“It gives them an appreciation of what energy is and how it behave and where it comes from,” Wanzer said, “and a sense that electricity is not free; it comes with cost.”

Students learn at the same time taxpayers’ budgets are tightening in the lagging economy, and administrators have spent the past few weeks leading up to Town Meeting Day searching for ways to stretch limited tax dollars. They want voters in early March to see budgets that address school needs in the leanest form possible.

The savings in Cabot represent only two-tenths of a percent of the $2.7 million school budget. Still, principal David Book said $5,000 would pay for an entire computer station, or a uniform for each player on the school’s eight basketball teams.

“Every penny you save, the better off you are,” he said.

Low-cost solutions

The Cabot energy project began with a conversation between Wanzer and his friend Andy Shapiro, energy engineer for the Vermont Energy Education Program. The program, set up in the 1970s by the state Public Service Department, helps schools find ways to teach about energy issues.

The Vermont Superintendents Association School Energy Management Program, which helps schools reduce costs through energy efficiency, also joined the project. Program manager Jonathan Sturges walks Cabot students through the school buildings to find ways energy is being wasted.

“They always seem to find something,” he said. “They’re certainly low-cost solutions, which is great.”

Last year’s class found Cabot could save $2,650 a year by turning off computers when not in use; $1,740 by installing an inexpensive switch that let employees turn on some, rather than all, lights in the gymnasium; $530 to put a similar switch in six classrooms; and $248 by turning off bulbs in two vending machines.

“They’ve come up with things I never would have thought of,” said Fran Barhydt, Director of the Vermont Energy Education Program.

Two years ago, the first group of students to do the energy project recommended to the School Board that more efficient lighting be installed in four of the school’s buildings. The board agreed to the $7,600 project. Students calculated that the annual $1,500 energy savings would make up the cost in about five years.

Wanzer said students learn when they help improve their school, “It puts them in a position of power, where they know more than the adults,” he said.

Burning energy

This year’s physics students, mostly juniors and seniors, began the energy project this month. Jimmy Ackermann and Ashley Bean are continuing the classroom lighting review. Ethan Lay-Sleeper is focusing on the library, which has 32 lights and 13 computers. Alison Burns is looking at how many computers are left on in a half-dozen high school classrooms. “They never turn them off,” she said.

Ackermann and Bean will look at whether the school should add switches that would allow some but not all classroom lights to be on. They have to call electricians and utilities to find out how cost-effective new switches could be.

The state allows classrooms to have as little as 50 foot-candles of lighting reaching students’ desks. A foot-candle is a measure of the amount of light. Wanzer held a light meter to a desk in an unlighted room on a recent overcast day and found about 100 foot-candles of natural light coming through the windows.

Ackermann said his early work on the project has taught him a lot about his school. “You see how much we actually burn in energy,” he said.

Saving money

The Burlington School District spends almost $1 million of its approximately $30 million budget on energy costs. Superintendent Lyman Amsden said. Representatives of the district and the Burlington Electric Department will meet today to talk about ways to educate staff and students in energy efficiency. Amsden said the district also has a new electric car that the maintenance department will use to travel from school to school.

The Colchester School District installed more efficient lighting about five years ago and recently began a regular maintenance schedule to make its air systems more efficient, said business manager John Gifford. He said it’s hard to tell how effective energy changes are until they’ve been in place at least five years. “A winter like this we’re saving a hell of a lot of money,” he said.

Schools should be careful when trying to save money with the little things, according to Gifford. He said schools might save $3 an hour by shutting off gym lights when they’re not being used for a short time, but the energy to turn they back on might cost more than that. Still, he said a project like Cabot’s provides valuable lessons. “It creeps an awareness into the kids,” Gifford said. “When they’re walking down the hall, they’ll reach in and shut the light off.”

Wanzer said students can take these lessons home, spreading the message of energy efficiency.
“Perhaps there’s some dialogue between students and moms and dads,” he said. “That’d be nice.”

 

 

Waits River Electricity and the Environment VEEP’s Electricity and the Environment Turns Out To Be Fun! Waits River Fifth Graders Are Wired!

 

One by one, the kids climbed on the bike and pedaled their hearts out. There was no wind in their hair because the bicycle was stationary, its rear wheel attached to a small generator that guest-instructor Andy Shapiro had rigged to a panel of fluorescent and incandescent light bulbs. Their classmates, gathered around the stationary bike, cheered them on as they pedaled hard, trying to bring the bulbs to full illumination. Sometimes it was easy – particularly when all the switches were in the “off” position. But when Shapiro turned on the 60-watt incandescent bulb – the “traditional” kind of light bulb many of us use in our table lamps and ceiling fixtures – the pedaling got hard. And when he flipped on the 100-watt bulb the rider would grunt and pump for all he (or she) was worth.

But there was more to this hour-and-a-half lesson, which took place one morning in January at the Waits River Valley Elementary School as snow fell softly outside the window. Shapiro turned off the incandescent bulbs and switched on one, then both, of the squiggly 23-watt fluorescent bulbs. The light was equal to that produced by the round, incandescent bulbs – but, boy, was the pedaling easier!

Suddenly, the youngsters understood the real meaning “energy” when the word is applied to the production of electric power. It actually means energy! The same kind of energy children display eight hours a day in the classroom and playground. And they grasped that, because even they can’t produce limitless energy, the environment can’t, either.

Where VEEP comes in. The typical bulbs and batteries curriculum is often a very successful educational experience, but it usually does not present the whole picture of electricity. Where does power come from? How is it produced? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each source of electricity?

This is where VEEP comes in – the Vermont Energy Education Program is now broadly affiliated with participating electric utilities, school districts, colleges and education associations, and is administered by the Vermont Energy Investment Corp. (VEIC), a Burlington-based non-profit that promotes energy efficiency. VEEP provides curriculum and instruction in electricity, conservation and the scientific method, for K-12 school systems and provides professional-development courses for teachers. VEEP staff work with the teacher before and during the presentation to tailor the learning opportunities to grade level and time.

The VEEP presentation started things off with a brief history lesson, taking the students back to England in the early 1800s, when an inventor named Michael Faraday discovered a principle crucial to generating electricity. A magnet is passed back and forth though a coil of wire, which stimulates a current of electrons. “You can think of it as the magnet pushing the electrons, the same way it would push little iron filings,” Shapiro explained. The students tried out magnets and coils, and several types of small hand-crank generators. By 1831, the Englishman had perfected a magnet-and-wire device called Faraday’s Coil, a central component of the generator. The more electricity you needed, the bigger the generator had to be, but rotating a large generator required force, so people harnessed rivers to turn turbines to turn the generators.

Steam was another way to power turbines, but to generate steam you must boil water. The students watched VEEP demonstrate a working steam-powered mini-generator! VEEP asked the class how many different ways they could think that we produce steam to make electricity. Hands shot up, and the children rattled off several: oil, gas, coal, wood, nuclear (fission); someone said solar panels, and somebody mentioned that wind could turn turbines. Then the teacher broke the class into small groups to study these alternatives, using worksheets provided by VEEP and help from the adult instructors. In 10 minutes the groups were prepared to identify the Faraday’s Coil in each kind of turbine, and list the advantages and disadvantages of the fuels they had studied.

After class, Fran Douglas, the classroom teacher, said VEEP’s presentation had made a big impression. “The fact that so much of it was interactive and hands-on was very helpful,” she said. “They were completely engaged, the whole time. (The lesson) gave them a personal perspective on energy efficiency because they experienced it first hand on the bicycle.”
(Adapted with permission from Washington Electric Cooperative Currents article)

Lyndon Town School Electricity and the Environment Charge Up Science Classes (Caledonian Record, May 12, 2003)

 

For two mornings this spring, Lester Butterfield’s seventh-grade science students (Lyndon Town School) charged up the atmosphere in their classes by generating electricity to power flashlights, 60-watt traditional light bulbs, 23-watt compact fluorescent bulbs, and light-emitting diodes (LEDs). LEDs are those green, red, or orange glows that indicate if your TV, computer and printer have power. LEDs are cool, energy efficiency, and are now used in some traffic lights.

Butterfield introduced Fran Barhydt, director of the Vermont Energy Education Program (VEEP) to his students. Barhydt began the lesson with a bit of history by introducing the students to English scientist Michael Faraday and his amazing idea that influences our everyday life. During the 1830s, Faraday reasoned that is a magnet were moved back and forth through a coil of wire, electrons would flow in the wire, producing electricity. This is the basis of many modern generators, which provide our needs for electricity.

Students moved magnets and coils to generate electricity in a Faraday Coil, hand-crank flashlights, and hand-crank generators, which powered lights, a motor and an LED. Next, Butterfield grouped students to research different methods of generation. Each group was assigned to learn about one method of generating electricity and then teach the class. Each group used an over-head transparency to show the class if there was a Faraday Coil in the generator, explain how it worked, and to state at least two advantages and disadvantages for that method.

Students learned about generating electricity using fossil fuels, nuclear, water, solar, wind, and geothermal power. Since each method has disadvantages as well as advantages, it becomes important to use electrical energy and fuels wisely—efficiently. So how do we use fuels wisely, reduce pollution and reduce our electricity bills? Answering that question was more fun and easy to learn than most would expect.

Barhydt moved to the special stationary bike that she brought to class. A Faraday Coil is housed in the generator, which is attached to the rear wheel. The generator is plugged into a light panel consisting of two 60-watt traditional light bulbs and two 23-watt compact fluorescent bulbs. When someone pedals the bike, the generator produces electricity to power the ulbs that are switched on. It is easy to pedal the bike when al the switches are off. When Barhydt switched on one 60-watt incandescent or traditional bulb, it became a little harder to pedal. When she switched on two 60-watt incandescent bulbs, it became harder to pedal, especially the longer one pedaled.

Then Barhydt switched to the one “spirally” 23-watt compact fluorescent bulb. “Wow, that’s easy and the light bright.” Next, two 23-watt compact fluorescent bulbs. “Easy, and it takes less energy to power the compact fluorescent than an equivalent traditional bulb.” So what does energy efficient mean? Many answered, “it takes less energy to do the same work or produce the same amount of light.”

Why bother being concerned about energy efficiency? “We can reduce pollution, save our environment, and save money.”
Following the VEEP presentation, Butterfield had the students evaluate the program. Students were asked to share their likes, dislikes, things they learned, and asked if they would recommend the program to other students.

The two areas most identified as likes were: the “bike generation experiment” and “making electric current by moving a magnet through a coil of wire.” The dislike was no surprise, nearly 25 percent of the students said they did not like “getting up in front of class to give a summary of their type of generation.”

A dislike that was a surprise – 10 percent of the students said the time was too short, even though the schedule was changed to create a 70-minute block for the program. One student wrote, “the only thing I didn’t like was that I didn’t get a chance to ride the bike”

When asked what they learned, a large majority wrote about making current using a magnet and a coil of wire. One student summed it up this way, “I didn’t know there were so many ways to make electricity.” Several discussed the importance of changing from incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs to conserve energy and to reduce environmental problems related to energy sources. In closing, when students were asked if they would recommend the program to other students, the answer was a resounding “Yes!”

Vermont teachers interested in a VEEP “Electricity and the Environment” presentation may contact Lucy Gluck at 1-888-921-5990, ext 1092, or email Lgluck@veic.org. The Vermont Department of Public Service, Efficiency Vermont, and participating Vermont utilities sponsor VEEP.

VEEP is a non-profit educational organization and operates as a program of the Vermont Energy Investment Corporation © VEEP 2003