Schools

Area Teachers Get Skilled in Alternative Energy

Educators from throughout the county came together this week for a special camp on green technology.

Middle school teachers from across Union County are spending the week getting a lesson in all things “green.”

It’s all part of a special camp sponsored by the Union County Vocational-Technical Schools and industrial supplies manufacturer Honeywell. Called a “Green Boot Camp,” the week-long session is intended to give teachers the tools they need to teach sustainability.

“Our kids have minimal knowledge of sustainability,” said Jen Slavin, a 7th grade science teacher at Park Middle School in Scotch Plains. “They know we’re supposed to recycle, but other than that they don’t really know. This is giving us some more projects to do to teach them.”

The idea for the camp first came about when Union County Vocational-Technical Superintendent Thomas Bistocchi approached Honeywell for help in building an alternative energy curriculum. Honeywell in turn gave Vo-Tech $30,000 to create that curriculum and to host a camp to pass the knowledge on to teachers.

“This is about teaching, what does the future look like?” said John Isherwood, marketing manager for Honeywell. “Vo-Tech challenged us and said, ‘we need to think of the future of environmental green’.”

School district superintendents all chose one teacher to attend the camp. Those who were selected were given $500 stipends and 35 hours of professional development hours for their participation.

Each day of “Green Boot Camp,” which runs through Friday at Vo-Tech in Scotch Plains, has the teachers dividing their time between hands-on projects and sessions from guest speakers. They’ve also taken a tour of Vo-Tech to get an understanding of how its energy system works.

On Wednesday morning, the teachers were busy building a mock wind turbine out of plastic pipes and tinker toys. Broken up into five teams, the groups of teachers used an instruction guide to get them started on the project. But making the turbine work was all a matter of trial and error.

“It just doesn’t have enough wind power,” said Marty Zervas, a teacher at Westfield’s Edison Intermediate School, after her team’s turbine failed to generate much voltage when put to the test.

Gina Fox, a teacher at Westfield’s Roosevelt Intermediate School who was also on Zervas’ team, carried the turbine back to their work table for examination.

“We’re thinking about cutting these down,” she said, pointing to the blue tinker toy rods that held the wooden blades together.

At the end of each camp day, the teams use what they’ve learned to create lesson plans that they can take back to the classroom.

Diane Camera, a Fanwood resident who teaches 8th grade science at Rahway Middle School, said the knowledge she’s learned about sustainability will be beneficial in augmenting her lessons in the fall.

“Most kids don’t have the understanding right now, and we have to get these concepts across to them—carbon footprint, green, sustainability,” she said. “This has been excellent.”


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