Hopkins Public Schools: Students Explore Sustainable Energy

Press release from Hopkins Public Schools:

February 8, 2022

Junior high students designed and created their own version of sustainable energy in a 7-8 week unit about the political implications of using or not using sustainable forms of energy and the impact of climate change. Thanks to a Hopkins Education Foundation grant, North and West junior highs received kits from Carolina Biological to investigate and design solar and wind forms of sustainable energy.

Students had the opportunity to create four different types of sustainable energy in all: solar, wind, geothermal and hydroelectric. Students were tasked with designing a set up that would produce the maximum amount of electricity.

“I didn’t give them a lot of instruction on how to use each of them so that they could run through trial and error to figure out the particulars of all of it,” said Jeremy Reichel, North Junior High design teacher.

For example, the solar panels need to be set up in a certain array or shape so that light can be used to collect energy. They will need to understand how the shadow affects the panels behind in the second row depending on how the panels are arranged.

The main concepts of the unit are sustainability, balance, ideologies, and form. Students aren’t only asked to design sustainable energy, they must think about how those energy sources would align with fuel sources in a country and be feasible within that government’s ideology. That means they are also doing some research on a country.

“They've got to explore how that ideology typically supports or which power opposes sustainable energy,” Reichel said.

When students go through the design process as part of the International Baccalaureate program at the junior highs, they develop many soft skills that they will need in the real world. Grit and resilience from the trial and error it takes to find the best solution for their design, empathy as they think about how the design may affect the people in a specific country, and collaboration as they work together to create their project.

This press release was produced by Hopkins Public Schools. The views expressed here are the author’s own.