BRYAN, OH — High-voltage safety demonstrations, solar field tours, bucket truck shows, “dress like a lineman” games, and interactive presentations answering the following: What is a cooperative, and what does it take to keep the lights on? Nearly 200 Fairview and Hilltop middle schoolers did all this and more at North Western Electric Cooperative’s Energy Day, a special educational day for Be E3 Smart students packed with hands-on activities.
The Be E3 Smart program aims to harness students’ curiosity about energy and inspire innovation and leadership. The program’s three E’s stand for energy, efficiency, and education; its goal is to help middle school teachers show their students the power of energy in their everyday lives. The Ohio Energy Project (a nonprofit based in Worthington) sponsors the middle school teachers’ curriculum, and NWEC sponsors various energy efficiency items for students to use at home. This ensures hands-on experiments with every lesson, plus a take-home component students can show their parents and families. These items include low-flow showerheads, LED lightbulbs, weather sealing strips, and more.
Students attending Energy Day rotated between four stations, learning about NWEC’s generation portfolio, renewable energy, electric safety, the co-op business model, and how linemen climb poles and work to restore power after outages. Students were also able to put on linemen gear and gloves, racing their teammates to finish a series of tasks.
The takeaway? All the gear linemen wear can make even simple tasks much harder, adding bulk and a need for improved coordination and strength. (See a video of one Fairview student playing the game here.)
One thing is for sure: the students and staff alike had an “electrifying” day! To see NWEC’s full photo gallery on Facebook, click here. You can also view the highlight reel video here.
To learn more about Be E3 Smart, visit www.ohioenergy.org. You can also call NWEC at 800-647-6932 or go to www.nwec.com.
