Ten enthusiastic McNair Academic high school students and their Advanced Placement Environmental Science teacher, Dr. Olubukanla Okusanya, boarded a bus two weeks ago and traveled to the Green Mountain Energy Company in Pennsylvania to study wind. The trip was not organized by the district, the school, or the administration, but by the students themselves.
Back in April, eight seniors, Fatima Abbasi, Grace Brown, Smita Gopisetty, Christine Jorda, Rehana Khan, Christine Matalabos, Emma Solberg and Mary Velasquez, along with the two juniors, Mary Abaskharoun and Noel Pura, entered an environmental science competition called the Sustainable Communities Project at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City. The students were informed about the contest by their teacher, Dr. Okusanya. He suggested the project to his two advanced classes and said he needed 10 volunteers to sign up to work with him to create an entry.
“It’s special to be a part of something that’s taking a step in the right direction,” said senior Fatima Abbasi about volunteering for the competition.
After an orientation at the Liberty Science Center introducing the various different environmental topics the students could chose from, the group decided on wind energy. Their job was to create a plan that proposed the wide-scale use of their form of sustainable energy.
Even though it wasn’t a requirement of the competition, they based their project in Jersey City. The group felt that wind power was best suited for New Jersey, especially with the topography and other technicalities in their own city. They created a hypothetical wind turbine, which is a generator that creates energy when the wind blows, to be placed in Liberty State Park.
Their project, entitled “The Way of the Wind,” included a research paper, a PowerPoint slide show, a backboard display and a moving model, all of which the group presented at the Liberty Science Center on April 22, Earth Day. By the time the final day of the competition came around, the team was full of knowledge about wind energy.
“I didn’t think we could learn so much in so little time,” said Rehana Khan, one of the senior participants, about their weeks of research.
The McNair students were awarded the first place prize, $1,500 for their school. They credited Dr. Okusanya for all of the confidence and help that he gave them.
“He wouldn’t expect anything else,” students said about their victory.
“I demand excellence,” laughed Dr. Okusanya.
Right after the team found out that their project won, an actual wind turbine opened at the Liberty Science Center. It proved that their assumptions about the accuracy of the area were correct.
“It’s amazing to see how much potential we have in Jersey City for wind energy. It can decrease the use of fossil fuels and put the environment in better shape,” said senior Grace Brown.
Wind power is the most non-polluting sustainable energy source. Fossil fuels have been the nation’s source of energy for a long time, and now they are depleting. Sustainable energy, like wind, is the answer because it will decrease pollution and has a never-ending supply. Currently, only 0.8 percent of energy is generated by wind turbines in the United States.
One wind-based electricity company claims on its website that its wind farms serve more than 100,000 resident customers in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Texas to fulfill their “minute-to-minute electricity needs.” Wind flows through the company’s turbines and generates electricity that is sent elsewhere.
Field trip of wisdom
Once the school won the $1,500, it decided to give the prize money back to the students, since they were the ones who earned it. Dr. Okusanya and the 10 winners discussed the options for the use of the money and concluded that visiting a “wind farm” would be appropriate.
The students were interested and involved with their project, and were eager to learn more. That is how they set out on June 8 to Garrett, Pa., on a five-hour bus trip to visit the Green Mountain Energy Company. At Green Mountain the students got an up close and personal look at how wind power is really made. After doing so much research on the topic, they were already familiar with the way that the turbines worked, but had never seen one in front of them.
Green Mountain Energy Company is one of the nation’s leading producers of electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar energy. John Holtz, an employee at Green Mountain, picked the students up at the nearby hotel they would be staying in for the night and took them to the farm. Together they explored one of the eight 200-foot tall, 95-foot long turbines of the farm. Each turbine took $3 million to create.
When they entered the turbine, they found that it was very tiny inside, just enough to fit the 12 of them. The students were amazed at the advanced computers and framework of the structure.
As they observed, they kept their own research in mind. “We must take sustainability into consideration to ensure the survival of our future generations,” said their abstract for the project.
Upon completion of the tour of the turbine, the students were invited to dinner at the farm. They were given a presentation by Green Mountain employees about the way that the turbine they explored was imported from Denmark. The students were fascinated by the information, and the workers at Green Farm were ecstatic to see teenagers with such an intrigue for the subject.
“I thought it was interesting that a group of high school seniors, rather than spending the money on a trip to the Jersey Shore or Great Adventure, want to come out and study wind,” said Holtz.
The company presented the students with shirts for each of them and a small model of a wind turbine dedicated to the group.
But there were other sweet rewards of the trip. Since the trip did not cost much, the students decided to journey from the 40 acres of wind farm to the 110 acres of Hershey Park for a day of fun.
Heal the world
Even after the education and the revelry, there was still money left over from the prize, which the students have decided to put towards next year’s research project. The competition will be carried on by the two junior members of the group, Abaskharoun and Pura.
“In a world that depends on finite resources, it is integral that we pursue all sources of energy that can ultimately be replenished,” said Pura.
Dr. Okusanya said he enjoyed working with the productive students.
“Many people are now envious of this group,” he said proudly.
One of the seniors, Smita Gopisetty, who will be going on to Yale University next year, expressed her thoughts about the research. “Our long term purpose was to get wind energy started in Jersey City,” she said, “and hopefully move on to New Jersey, the United States, and someday, the world.”