Renewable Energy Education Program
Puget Sound Energy’s Renewable Energy Education Program (“REEP”, formerly the Solar Schools Program) was designed to promote solar photovoltaic and small wind demonstration projects at educational facilities.
Since 2008, PSE has provided funds for 24 photovoltaic and one wind turbine demonstration project located at schools and educational entities in eight western Washington counties. See the website featuring these schools and other projects sponsored by our Green Power Program:
» Go to PSE's Solar 4R Schools partner page
In 2012, PSE closed the REEP grant program for solar demonstration projects to focus on wind power education. Wind turbine design has expanded in recent years with numerous types of turbines and technical improvements.
To provide opportunities for students to delve into the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) complexities of wind power, PSE sponsored an event for grades 4 through 12 in Kittitas County in the spring of 2012. Twenty three teams and 115 students packed the engineering lab at Central Washington University’s Hogue Hall Fluke Lab to test their wind turbine designs in a wind tunnel built by the KidWind Project. KidWind is an international education effort that has trained over 7,000 teachers and impacted more than 500,000 students in over 40 states since 2004.
KidWind instructors will conduct teacher training on Friday afternoon in Ellensburg on February 22, and on Saturday morning in Snoqualmie on February 23 (these are identical workshops to accommodate teacher schedules). You will learn how to form a student team and get involved in The KidWind Challenge, a student-driven poster presentation and wind tunnel testing demonstration.
These FREE 3.5 hour workshops will appeal to middle/high school STEM educators who are interested in renewable energy, physics, engineering and design (for teachers with no experience and those already well versed in wind technology). Teachers will receive over $100 worth of classroom materials, including a wind turbine kit and a comprehensive curriculum package free of charge. Food and refreshments will be provided for all attendees.
Teachers will learn how to form student teams, who will build test and refine their designs over the course of 8 weeks. These teams will prepare a poster presentation and bring their best turbine design to a competition and test the performance of their turbine in PSE’s “see through” wind tunnel in the “KidWind Challenge.” This is an event open to students in grades 4 through 12, again in Ellensburg at Central Washington University, on Saturday, April 27, 2013.
Teachers need to sign up on the KidWind website for the “Teacher Workshop” and “Challenge Event.” Preference will be given to Kittitas County and North Bend area schools before other schools are accepted. To register and learn more about KidWind:
» Register and learn more about KidWind
Space is limited to the first 20 teachers who sign up for each workshop. For more formation on the workshops contact Joe Rand at the KidWind Project at 877-917-0079 or email joe@kidwind.org.
Please contact Micah Haman, Customer Renewable Energy Program Manager, at micah.haman@pse.com or 425-456-2992, if you have questions or are having difficulty getting signed up on the KidWind website.