Teaching about Wind Energy

One of the missions of the Southwestern College Green Team is to teach others on campus and in the community the importance of living a sustainable way of life. One of the areas that Green Team students have learned about and desire to teach others is the growing importance of renewable energy sources. The installation of the college's first wind turbine is leading to opportunities to do just that.

On March 15th, the Green Team hosted 52 students from Mrs. Camille Richert's chemistry class from Winfield High School. The students are learning about alternative energy sources and they wanted to come to the college and see the turbine and learn about it. Green Team director, Jason Speegle taught the high school students about wind energy, some specifics about the Skystream turbine as well as the importance of sustainable living. Green Team students, Stephen Strecker and Daniel Van Sickle led the group through a presentation about solar energy and highlighted some of the things that the Green Team participates in on the Southwestern campus.

Also, on February 9th, the Green Team hosted a group of 13 students from Mr. Greg Carver's agriculture class from Winfield High School. The students in the class were learning about solar and wind energy and came over to the wind turbine site on the college campus. Green Team student, Stephen Strecker and director, Jason Speegle presented the students with information regarding wind and solar energy as well as information about how Southwestern installed its wind turbine in the summer of 2011. Some of the applications that were planned for the group were postponed due to the cold, rainy, cloudy nature of the Thursday afternoon.

According to Carver, some of the students in his class are "determined to build a [wind] generator" so the opportunity for them to see one up close was very valuable.