Sourced Content
Wellington, February 2, 2020
Photo credit: Mark Robotham.
Taking Science outside the classroom has brought rewards and awards for students, creating citizen Science learning tools for future students of New Plymouth Girls’ High School.
At the suggestion of Science teacher Athol Hockey, Year 13 students Breanna and Jessica began investigating how New Plymouth Girls’ High School could generate its own sustainable energy for use in electric vehicles (EVs).
The students won several Science fair prizes and awards for the project, which involved monitoring the energy generation of solar panels and two types of wind turbines.
They recorded the voltage, current, power and accumulative energy over seven weeks while also gathering weather data.
Interest in sustainable projects
Their project stemmed from a concurrent project involving the sustainable charging of batteries for the EVolocity competition.
Breanna said that they took the opportunity suggested by Mr Hockey because they are interested in sustainability and Science.
“With so much coverage and attention on climate change and sustainability it was a good project for us. One of the reasons we did it was to show people how they can contribute towards a more sustainable future,” she said.
Jessica had earlier studied solar panels at intermediate.
Mr Hockey, who is enjoying using his Master’s degree in environmental education in the classroom, is modest about his contribution but encourages other teachers to keep giving students ideas.
“I am blown away by what these girls achieved. Obviously, I gave them a bit of help in the beginning and was able to use some funding to get them set up, but once they got the opportunity, they got stuck into it,” he said.
Community and business support
A key part of the success of the project was Mr Hockey reaching out to the community for support.
What started as one solar panel became five with a donation from local company Computer Sense. From there PowerCo donated an inverter, which allows teachers and students to monitor electricity generation.
“That is really helpful, more people can get educational benefit from it. There is now even enough electricity being generated to charge some teachers’ EVs, should they wish to plug,” Jessica said.
She said that they enjoyed the opportunity to develop a project away from the classroom.
“You can follow your own method on where you are going to take a project without having guidelines,” she said.
The students said that their most interesting findings were that hotter temperatures reduced the energy output of solar panels, and that converting to solar panels is more affordable than expected.
EVolocity Schools Challenge
In another part to the project, a group of Year 11 students used old bike parts, motors from ebikes and scrap metal to build and design two EVs, named Cyclops and Koopa King, as part of the EVolocity schools challenge, in which Cyclops qualified for the national finals event.
The students learnt how electrical connections and motors worked and used computer technology to programme their vehicle’s controller.
They also learnt perseverance when the vehicles didn’t always start.
Mr Hockey said that the success of this project was also due to expertise and support from several businesses in the community, and he encourages other teachers to think about opportunities in their community.
He said that other students can now continue learning from the projects because they attracted donations from local people and companies.
Captive power plant
New Plymouth Girls’ High School is now generating a small amount of its own sustainable energy, which offsets its monthly power bill, and it would like to add more solar panels in future.
The work connects with other projects in the community towards sustainable energy by 2050 in Taranaki, Mr Hockey said.
“Hopefully it will carry on and become a bigger thing. Rather than it being a one-off project, we want to make a bigger impact,” he said.
Project partners and supporters: Curious Minds Taranaki Participatory Science Platform via Venture Taranaki Trust; Computer Sense; Rivet Engineering; Egmont Industrial Supplies; Ecoinnovation; Plug n Play; e2bikes; Motiv Parts Supply; PowerCo; Open Polytechnic staff.
