July 30, 2024
This month’s inaugural Clean Energy exploration was a great success and the TPZ team is thrilled with the engagement our first cohort showed with both their learning progression and the challenging content. Students took a deep dive, from never having built circuits, to not only building and testing a wide array of power generation examples, but also the measurement tools and techniques utilized in clean energy. TPZ, with the generous funding from National Grid, was able to create a learning experience that was highly relevant to the sustainable energy industry.
Over the two weeks, teens built wind, mechanical, and solar generating arrays, as well as soldering together multiple projects and circuits to support the discovery. At the heart of the student experience was a hand-crank cellphone charger that students built and then experimented with to test alternate power sources such as a solar cell array they soldered together. Students used the Microbit microcontroller to “switch” their grid power sources and model how our energy grid draws power from different generation sources depending on demand and supply conditions. The students also built a small electric car from the ground up that gave them the chance to look at some of the basics of how modern electric vehicles consume and control power.
TPZ students did exceptionally high quality work and managed norms admirably, taking on a big chunk of challenging material and documenting their progress daily in Google Sheets and through photo logs. Our educator team was inspired and energized to work with an enthusiastic, engaged group of motivated learners. They anticipate sharing highlights of this inaugural Clean Energy Deep Dive experience with National Grid and other clean energy organizations regionally to highlight TPZ’s unique ability to provide relevant and fun experiences that help prepare young people to pursue innovative careers.
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Feedback from students includes:
“I learned about voltage and resistance at school, but really finding out the meanings in a different way was so cool.” – Donn
“By making the generators and getting to understand how the components worked together, we got a lot more understanding of how we could create something like this using our own hands.” – Tyler
“This program teaches you hands on; lots of actual demonstrations and hands-on work which is pretty cool considering we are also getting paid for it.” – Elijah
BREAKING NEWS
Monday, July 29, 2024 – Governor Maura Healey signed the Fiscal Year 2025 Massachusetts state budget; in it includes a line item for TPZ! It provides, “that not less than $200,000 shall be expended to The Possible Zone to implement an Innovative Pathways program in Clean Energy/ Advanced Manufacturing for high schoolers in grades 10-12, creating equitable opportunities for underserved student populations.” We are proud to be a recipient of this state earmark which supports our experiential learning program that helps prepare young people for life-long learning and readiness for careers of the future.
