ASEE 2014 Zone I Conference, April 3-5, 2014, University of Bridgeport, Bridgpeort, CT, USA.

Energy For Education

Bringing reliable energy where its needed most: Schools.

Moijue Kaikai

Dr. Erin D. Baker

Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department

University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Amherst, MA
[email protected]

Associate Professor, Director, Wind Energy IGERT

University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Amherst, MA
[email protected]

Model Wind Turbine

Students Testing their Wind Turbines

Abstract-Many issues surround the global energy crisis,

including climate change and peak oil. One crucial issue that is
often overlooked is awareness about energy issues and the
sustainable and renewable technologies being implemented and
researched to solve them. Spreading awareness among youth is a
way to engage the next generation in such topics, build their
interest solving energy issues, and spread awareness across their
own communities.
Keywordsrenewable;
sustainable;
education; energy; awareness; lesson plans; wind

I.

curriculum;

INTRODUCTION

Energy for Education is an initiative set forth by the student

run non-profit organization World Energy Project. The goal is
to educate grade school students on energy issues -- globally
and within their own communities and on sustainable
practices used to resolve them. In order to achieve this, we
have developed a curriculum composed of a series of lesson
plans in the classroom. This curriculum was developed in the
summer of 2013 by undergraduate Moijue Kaikai under the
supervision of Dr. Erin Baker in the University of
Massachusetts of Amherst Research Experience for
Undergraduates (REU) Program. In the same summer, the
curriculum was implemented in UMass Amhersts college-prep
Upward Bound Summer Program, which hosted inner-city
students from the High School of Commerce in Springfield,
Massachusetts.
Not only does the curriculum build on students global
awareness, but it also serves to generate students interest in

attending college and studying within the STEM fields, and to

improve the skill sets needed to pursue any major in college.
More specifically, the objectives of the curriculum are to
improve communication through writing, discussions, and oral
presentations; and to improve student skills in critical thinking
and problem solving, especially engineering problem solving,
and sharpen student skills in math and science. The various
lessons plans are framed around a hands-on wind turbine
project to achieve these objectives.
II.

BACKROUND RESEARCH

Prior to developing any lesson plan, research was

conducted on topics, including: Energy in Springfield,
Currirculum Implementation, Mentoring Students of Color,
and STEM Education.
A. Energy in Springfield
Knowing that this curriculum would be first
implemented with students from Springfield, we researched
how energy was generated in that area and if there were any
recent renewable technology projects occurring in the city. We
found that electric generation during peak periods came
primarily from the West Springfield Generating Station, which
is a peaking facility. Both units 1 and 2 are two natural gas and
oil-fired combustion turbine generators, which can generate 48
MW each. They serve as the sites primary functioning units
and operate when called upon to supply the grid with needed
power [1]. Another relevant organization is Stop Toxic

Incineration in Springfield, a grassroots organization dedicated

to stopping a proposed biomass incinerator in Springfield. This
group, along with many other protesters, prevented the
development of the Russell Biomass LLC $165 million, 50
megawatt biomass plant in Russell, of Eastern Springfield. 26
groups, societies, and councils joined together to oppose the
biomass center [2]. It was concluded that lack of awareness and
public acceptance were the reasons for the termination of this
project. The plant did have environmental impacts but proved
to emit less carbon dioxide than current generating plants. The
state Department of Environmental Protection even approved
an air permit for the Springfield project, saying it met all
regulatory and environmental standards [3].
B. Curriculum Implementation/Project Based Learning
Team based projects and overall curriculum will have to
draw on students critical thinking abilities to be effective.
Another important aspect is assessment, so the instructor can
understand where the overall class environment is with their
understanding and interest within the subject, thus allowing for
changes based on that assessment where necessary. Goals of
Action Research- participatory action research through means
of community reflective and progressive problem solvinginclude the improvement of practice through continual learning
and progressive problem solving, a deep understanding of
practice and the development of a well specified theory of
action, and an improvement in the community in which your
practice is embedded through participatory research. A key
question when designing research in an educational context is,
If a teacher sets up community circle time to listen to students
describe their learning experiences in the classroom, in what
ways, if any, will the information about their learning
processes help the teacher redesign the way he or she teaches
[4]?
C. Mentoring Students of Color
There is evidence that certain classroom environments, as
well as educational system barriers critically affect urban
students learning ability. On the other hand, personal
connections help them develop a deeper self-awareness and
understanding of the potential they possess. Smaller
classrooms make such personal connections more feasible. A
study examined teacher-student interactions and relationship
quality among poor, urban, African-American children
expressing differential school satisfaction. The results of this
study suggested that the social context of the classroom
influences students' appraisals of school as a likeable and
satisfying environment. Successful schooling for at-risk
students may also involve altering the classroom or learning
environment rather than attempting to alter the student [5].
D. STEM Education
Articles discuss STEM (science, technology, engineering,
and math) classroom practice and how engineering should be
taught as a more practical and inter-disciplinary practice rather
than simply as math and science textbook questions. Other
factors including school type and grade levels, school
resources as well as teaching practices should be investigated
for empirical purposes. Therefore, researchers should design
This project was partially supported by NSF under award SMA-0960993,
as an REU supplement.

multiple studies in different school settings such as public

versus private, primary school versus secondary school, and
rural school versus urban school. These types of studies may
help scholars to understand how school context could affect
teacher classroom practice even if they have similar teaching
styles [6]. This curriculum was implemented in a public, urban
school setting.
III.

THE CURRICULUM

The Energy for Education Curriculum is composed of six

main parts. When implemented in the Upward Bound science
class the curriculum took about two weeks (nine days, one hour
each day) to complete.
A. Math/Physics Basics
The first of the six parts was a form of assessment we
called the Math/Physics Lesson Plan. The objective was to
improve the students skills in areas of math and problem
solving that they will need for the upcoming wind project and
in most math/physics related courses. This was achieved
through example problems involving unit conversions, order of
operations, and multiple step problem solving. When
implemented with the nine Upward Bound students, they had
great familiarity with these areas in their past physics course.
We got through the seven example problems within the first
day, with only a few students needing some reminders. The
amount of time needed for this lesson would depend on the
current skills of the students. One using this curriculum should
plan for more assessment time in case some students do not
understand the material.
B. Global Awarnesss
The next section of the curriculum was geared to making
the students aware of global energy issues; including global
warming, peak oil, and conflicts over oil. We used two
documentary clips for this. The first film, Crude Impact, did
not really engage the students Most of the students were falling
asleep or just did not retain most of the information watching
it. For the second documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, we
prepared 40 study guide questions. The students took the
assignment home after watching the 90 minute clip, and had
until the end of the week to complete. Now that the students
had to stay attentive to complete the guide they saw interest in
the issues presented in the film. It caused for great discussion
in the classroom when the assignment was due that Friday.
This part of the curriculum took 2 class periods, 1 for each
movie and 1 for a discussion.
C. Renewable Energy Technology
The remainder of the first week (Wednesday to Friday) was
committed to the third part of the curriculum, Introduction to
Renewable Energy Technologies. We developed PowerPoint
slides to display the five renewable energy resources (sun,
wind, biomass, geothermal, and hydroelectric) and the
technologies and processes in which they produce electricity.
This area required a cycle of assessment and development of
new methods. The method that was most effective was a
drawing of a simple web diagram with the five renewable

sources starting on one side of the blackboard, electricity

ending on the other. As a class, we then filled in the lines in
between to describe the processes in which electricity energy
is generated. As art of this, we concentrated on the fact that
energy is never created nor destroyed, but transferred. That is,
they were introduced to the first law of thermodynamics. For
example, for a wind turbine, kinetic energy from the wind is
captured by the turbines rotor blades, which turn that kinetic
energy into mechanical energy. That mechanical energy then
spins the shaft, which then drives the generator and produces
electrical energy. This process could be compared to other
forms of renewable energy as it is compared to geothermal
energy in figure 1.

Figure 1: Wind and Geothermal Energy Generation

web diagram
Once they understood how one process worked they could
apply them to real world scenarios; for example solar has the
most potential of all the renewable because of the abundance
of sunlight and low cost of constructing, operating, and
maintaining a solar panel as compared to an entire plant or
turbine. Biomass and solar processes were explained on
Wednesday, geothermal and hydroelectric on Thursday, and
then we finished up explaining wind power on Friday.
D.

Wind Project
After the first week of assessment, videos, and classroom
lectures, and discussions, the students were prepared to take on
the second half of the curriculum: the wind project. The fourth
portion of the curriculum allowed the students to construct a
rotor nacelle assembly (wind turbine without the tower). The
parts were easy to come by consisting of a pencil for the shaft,
a water bottle for the nacelle that holds everything together,
and stiff cardstock paper cut into a pinwheel to act as the rotor
blades. The kids attached metal washer weights to a string,
which was then attached to the shaft. They had a fan blow on
the blades and calculated the mechanical energy (work) and
power their turbines produced. With three groups of three
students, they were each constrained to the same blade design,
number of washers, and length of string for the first test run.
After a 15 minute introduction to the project and the associated
equations, the three groups quickly made their turbines, tested,
and calculated a power value within the hour.

E. Turbine Optimization
The fifth portion of the curriculum was for
experimentation. Without much supervision, the teams had to
work together to change features of their turbine to gain a
higher power value after testing. The groups got really
creative. They changed their blade designs to capture more
wind, some changed the number of washers and length of the
string carrying them, and some used additional washers and
cardstock paper to stabilize the shaft and lessen friction. On
this Tuesday the hour ran out but they took the projects back
to the dorms and tested that night and each came in with high
power values the next day.
F. Presentation
The final portion of this curriculum was the presentation.
Each group had ten minutes maximum to present what they
had learned within the curriculum. The groups were to act as if
they were wind companies wanting to sell their product to
potential investors. They were to assume that their investors
did not have much knowledge on global warming or
sustainable technology, so they would have to also pitch how
urgent the issue is while convincing the audience why they
should choose their turbines over the competitions. This
portion was the most rushed because they were due to present
the next day. Their posters would have been better and their
presentations would have lasted longer have they had more
time to prepare and practice. They presented their results to
wind research faculty and graduate students. Their ability to
answer questions posed by the visitors was evidence the
comprehension in the material they learned over the two
weeks.
IV.

FUTURE USE

After the successful implementation of this project, the

Diversity Programs Office of the College of Engineering
adapted the wind turbine project for 300 female students,
teachers, and guidance counselors from various local high
schools in Western Massachusetts for this years UMass
Amherst annual Women in Engineering and Computing
Career Day Conference. The lesson plan currently holds as a
learning module for the outreach leaders of DPO, where other
engineering students use parts of the curriculum when they
visit other schools and afterschool programs or vise-versa. The
next upcoming project is to work with the Cape Verde Student
Alliance (CVSA) to translate the lesson plans to PortugueseCreole in efforts to implement the curriculum in at Olavo
Moniz, a secondary school in Sal Cape Verde, by summers
end.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge Tyson
Rose, director of the Upward Bound Program; Dr. Trevor
Baptiste, science teacher of Putnam Vocational Technical High
School; and the students of the 2013 UMass Amherst Upward
Bound Summer Program for their support throughout the
execution of this curriculum.

REFERENCES
[1]
[2]

[3]

Springfield, Massachusetts. Essential Power. Accessed March 30th 2013

from http://www.essentialpowerllc.com/facilities/west-springfield-ma/
Say No to Springfield Construction and Demolition Incinerator.
Accessed
May
30th
2013
from
http://www.springfieldincinerator.info/index.html
Goonan, Peter. Terminated biomass project in Russell triggers mixed
comments on Springfield plant proposal.The Republican, Massachusetts.
November 1, 2012

[4]

[5]

[6]

Riel, M.Understanding Action Research, Center For Collaborative

Action Research.PepperdineUniverity. 2007.Accessed online on May
16th, 2013 from http://cadres.pepperdine.edu /ccar/define.html
Baker, J. A. Teacher-Student Interaction in Urban At-Risk Classrooms:
Differential Behavior, Relationship Quality, and Student Satisfaction
with School. The Elementary School Journal, Vol. 100, No. 1, pp. 57-70.
The University of Chicago. September 1999
Savasci-Acikalin, Funda.Teacher beliefs and practice in science
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Volume 10, Issue 1, Article 12, p.12. June 1, 2009