KWCH - Kansas News and Weather - New Wind Turbine Helps Students Learn
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by Tracy Crockett
Conserving energy and saving money, it's something that's on everyone's mind, especially after news of Westar wanting to increase utility rates. Now one school will be able to teach alternatives to their students returning this fall. Sterling school district is one of five schools in the state chosen to participate in the Winds for Schools program.
It's not something many schools have in their back yards. With the help of the city, this wind turbine is almost ready. Sterling High School is part of the Winds for School project. Dan Whisler, Sterling High School Biology & Environmental Science teacher says, "It's a tremendous experience it's one thing to see a picture or to read it in a text, but when we can work with it first hand and see the benefits of it it will be an exciting project."
One criteria for the program, good wind, there's no lack of it here, so you might be asking yourself why aren't the blades turning, well you might be surprised to know that they need electrical power. Elvin Seiders, Skystream wind generator dealer says, "It was designed to work with your utilities, not to replace them, it is a small generator, two kilowatts, which is, most homes require 7-10 to operate normally, so we're just supplementing the electricity."
Electricity is needed from the utilities to send the signal to get it started. Once that happens the students can see what is happening. Seiders says, "It monitors the voltage output and the kilowatt hours, the temperature up there, and the rpms." Whisler says, "We'll use it a lot in the environmental science classes, also physical science."
The program is geared to educate and encourage the use of wind, something that is growing. Ruth Douglas Miller, Associate Professor Electric Engineering KSU says, "Looking down the line the more wind we put up, the more employees we are going to need." Sterling High School Senior Bailee Cain says, "You go to school for it, and as soon as you're done they're grabbing ahold of you and saying come work for us, come work for us, so it's something I've thought about."
And it's something students here will already know a little about.
The wind turbine on average will save around 400 watts of energy per month, that's about $50 to $60 per month. Sterling High School hopes to have it's turbine turning and producing energy by the end of next week.
