These students are just not blowing into the wind

Their wind turbines may be too small to power your home, but middle school students from Lawrence Middle School and Lawrence Woodmere Academy showed their scientific know-how as the Five Towns schools placed in five out of six categories at the KidWind Challenge at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City on Oct. 18.

Lawrence Middle School had four teams place across two categories. Wendy Rodriguez, Kiani Whitlock, Daniel Morales and Trinity Mitchell took first place in the presentation category, and Xian Scott, Melanie Khordokovskiy and German Beltran took third.

Chloe Schillio, Chiara Mingolla and Kressias Ramirez-Rivera won first in the power output category, and Aryana Borjas and Caitlin Reda took third. Paul Orena, Charles Zou and Gavin Lu from Lawrence Woodmere Academy came in second in the presentation category.

The engineering and renewable energy competition has students, typically in groups of three or four, working with their hands to create model turbines in class. They were then judged on their knowledge of renewable energy, their teamwork and how much energy their turbine produces in the small wind tunnel.

Kerri Mackay, the museum’s competitions coordinator believes that this program is not only educational, but could help them prepare for an eventual job. “The museum wants kids, especially kids this age to understand that our environment really is in a crisis …” she said, “and [renewable energy is] a growing field so it just gives them a better perspective on the environment and the future of renewable energy.”

The museum’s lobby was packed with middle school students testing their designs before facing the judges. A few had two blades though most had three. Different groups had settled on different lengths, angles and materials for their blades. Some whipped around, while others rotated leisurely. All the students exhibited pride in their projects as their weeks of work in their science and technology classes came to fruition.

Gabby Domanas and Liselot Polanco, Lawrence Middle School eighth-graders, who worked together on their wind turbine researched the full-sized versions and based their designs on that. When asked what they learned Pollanco said that they almost decided to use curved blades after reading that in the future companies may design them that way.

Domanas had focused on more on the growing need for renewable energy in general. She said, “We learned that non-renewable resources really pollute the environment … so we learned how good these renewable sources like wind are for the environment.”

Teachers from Lawrence Middle School were thrilled to see how their students responded to the project. Stephanie Rubenfeld, a technology teacher said, “We want our students to understand the importance of wind energy … I think having the students come to something where they can compete against other schools, it just motivates them to do better.”

Students, teachers and museum employees believe that wind power will play a major role in the country’s energy future and want the younger generation to be prepared. Joanne Bracchy-Sarceno a science teacher at Lawrence Middle School believes this project helps kids gain skills they may end up using in their careers.

“I think they need more hands on activities,” she said. “I might be a little old fashioned but I do believe there’s a lot of value in what we used to call shop classes, the industrial arts and vocational training because not every student will be successful in going to college.”