 "Photo: Patrick Clayton")
A group of 36 Bryan middle-schoolers are learning the essentials of energy efficiency and alternative energy this week in a new program at Davila Middle School.
Camp Energy was designed to give sixth, seventh and eighth graders hands-on experience with energy conservation techniques, said Don Gilman, creator of the program and Texas A&M assistant research engineer.
"We hope we will produce students who are interested in it at a personal level and apply it to their lives, possibly as a career," said Bryan ISD secondary science coordinator Debbie Richards.
It is imperative that kids learn this concept now, Gilman said.
"If our parents had learned about it at that age, we wouldn't have the level of problems have now," Gilman said.
The camp will explore a different concept each day this week.
Camp Energy teacher Susan Hammond will teach an introduction to the different forms of energy, and energy transformations.
"We're going to do an energy survey to find out how efficient the school is," Hammond said. "The students will find out different ways that energy conservation can take place in a large building, compared to a small building such as their homes."
The students need to apply this knowledge in the future to make the most of our resources, Hammond said.
"As our energy resources change, the cost of energy changes over time and energy technology improves, we want the students to find the best uses of our energy resources and conserve energy for future generations," Hammond said.
The students will also learn about heat conservation, alternative fuels, wind energy and nuclear energy.
"Friday, the kids will build solar cars and have a solar barbeque," Richards said. "It should be a lot of fun."
The students will use a kit to see how different buildings perform in terms of energy consumption. The kit includes a solar window screen donated by EnerCon, a solar domestic hot water demonstration system with a thermal storage tank, residential wall panels with green fiber and pink insulation donated by GreenFiber, residential roof panels with normal roofing material and a radiant barrier, SIP roof/wall panels donated by EH Systems, a solar PV system, a heat lamp and reflector and an incandescent and CFL bulb display.
"The kids are going to see how the different building materials perform with a 300-watt heat lamp on them," Gilman said.
After the students experiment with the materials in the classroom, they will apply their knowledge to their own building, walking around with a checklist and noting what needs to change.
The students are expected to follow this procedure in their own homes, Gilman said.
"[Camp Energy] is taking a different approach to teaching science in middle schools: showing career opportunities in the field trips, the school gets an energy assessment, and the kids will go home to their parents teaching them what they've learned," Gilman said.
The students will go on three field trips to five different venues, including Bryan Texas Utilities.
"They're going to the pilot plant [at Texas A&M] that converts chicken poop and waste paper into gasoline components," Gilman said. "It's recycling at its utmost."
Camp Energy will hopefully be the start of a larger effort to teach children about energy conservation, Richards said.
"Our purpose in the summer camp is a pre-trial to align the activities to the state curriculum," she said. "We want to use it as a supplement during the school year."
The first step is for the program to expand to other school districts, Gillman said.
"An enhanced version of this [program] national, that's my goal," he said.
