A lot of work, planning, and money goes into a trip to the national challenge. Students miss school. Substitutes replace staff in classrooms. Parents have to take vacation time to travel. On the face of it, it seems like an awful lot of stuff goes into a trip just so the kids can have a little fun.
Students really are not exposed to a lot of jobs. You can tell them what an engineer does, but they still have little more than a basic concept. They learn about ratios in math class, but a practical application is not there. For the girls in the classroom, there are few people who can explain that "Yes, you can do this!" when talking about working in a field that is dominated by men.
Pictured here is a group of women who work in renewable energy in various capacities ranging from accountant, to attorney, to engineer talking to the young women on our team. They were attending the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) convention, of which the KidWind competition was a part. They encouraged our students to excel nd talked about what they did as part of their jobs. One of the women spoke about the thrill of sanding on top of a wind turbine, hundreds of feet in the air, tethered to the turbine with only a small rope and harness.
Many of the attendees from AWEA stopped by our wind turbines and talked to the students. We heard comments from some of the attendees that they did not learn some of the things our students were explaining to them until they were in college. Our students had access to the AWEA show floor. Many of the companies that were there will pay for college for students who show potential. There are opportunities for internships both after graduation from high school and while the student is in college. There are other programs that are available so that students can learn either through on the job training or enter the field after a brief period of training. Companies were actively recruiting some seniors and in the case of our students, telling them to keep in touch.
There were also 12 college teams there competing at a different level than our students. The professors who came with these teams stressed that the experiential learning that we were providing our students was far better at predicting success in school than were grades. This is important because some of our students are exceptional at working on projects like this, but may need some additional help in the classroom.
There are so many benefits to going to the national competition that it would be difficult to place in a blog. In our travels, the students saw one of the largest wind farms in the world. They ate Chicago style pizza and Chicago style hot dogs. They visited one of the largest cities in the country. The went to a Cubs game. They got to show off their talent to wind energy professionals. They came home national champions!
Comments