Jaclyn Arens
Co-ops in the Classroom is a program offered by B-Y Electric’s wholesale power provider, East River Electric Power Cooperative. Jennifer Gross, Education/Outreach Specialist for East River, travels throughout East River’s service territory in eastern South Dakota and western Minnesota to teach children about electrical safety, generation, conservation, and economics.
In February, we brought this program to four elementary schools in our service territory: Scotland Elementary, Tyndall Elementary, Springfield Elementary, and Yankton Stewart Elementary. Co-ops in the Classroom is targeted to 5th grade students.
Tabor elementary schools, and we are working on a rotating schedule to reach all the 5th graders in our service territory.
During the course of the 60-minute presentation, Gross took the students on the journey of electricity at the atomic level, all the way to the hundreds of miles it travels from the power plant to our homes.
A variety of hands-on demonstrations engaged the students. A Van de Graaff electrostatic generator demonstrated the movement of electrons with some hair-raising results. Another device that invokes a lot of excitement is the Pedal Power bicycle generator. Students are asked to become power plants as they provide the energy that produces electricity for lights and small household devices.
The Pedal Power turns the concept of electricity from something abstract into something tangible. By providing the energy needed to make a light bulb turn on, the students are able to quantify just how much more energy an incandescent light bulb requires than a compact fluorescent light (CFL). It takes four times more energy to power the incandescent bulbs with the same lighting output.
Gross also hooked up a fan and heating element to the human powered generator. The students first assume the fan takes more power but the heating element makes the bicycle almost impossible to pedal.
By the end of the presentation, students had developed a new understanding and appreciation for electricity.
The Co-ops in the Classroom event is a nice complement to other available education programs offered by B-Y Electric. In addition to Co-ops in the Classroom, we have a Powertown display that is great for safety demonstrations at 4-H camps, fairs, and other youth events. We also have access to a hotline trailer that provides a powerful demonstration of what can happen when a human body comes into contact with electricity.