VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Fifth grade students in Virginia Beach City Public Schools are analyzing their school’s energy consumption and making suggestions on how they can reduce their usage.
“Instead of spending time playing games on our computers, we could play board games which would use a lot less energy,” said student Whaylen Bookout.
“I want to add in some wind turbines," Yuliana Sanchez said. "If it’s really cloudy, we could use the geothermal wells and wind turbines to power the school.”
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Students interact with real data about their schools and then submit proposals to the principal for how to conserve energy, according to Nancye Flinn, Coordinator of the Elementary Science Department of Teaching and Learning for VBCPS.
“This is just one way we are trying to help our students see how science connects to our world," wrote Flynn.
Red Mill Elementary School took the project a bit further than some other schools by incorporating quite a bit of math.
“Not only do we get qualitative data with talking about energy conservation and transformations, but now we get quantitative data, too,” said Mr. Mark Schmidt who said he’s in his 30th year of teaching.
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Students looked at graphs showing the energy usage of Red Mill compared to other area schools.
Whaylen Bookout described the difference solar panels make.
"In Ocean Lakes, they use like zero because the solar panels save so much energy from them having to pay for it," said Whaylen. "So, they have zero every time. So, I think it would at least bring us down a good amount so we don’t have to spend so much on the electricity bill.”
Red Mill's principal, Dr. Michelle Miller, said solar is on the horizon.
“That’s something our division has been looking at, in particular, solar energy," said Dr. Miller. "More and more schools are starting to be equipped with solar panels.”
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Miller is awaiting the official recommendations from this year’s students, but she said in the past, they’ve even looked at smaller practices like making sure each classroom window has blinds.
“Elementary, obviously is focused on a lot of foundation skills with reading and math, but projects like this give students an opportunity to incorporate those subjects into real-world dilemmas and problems that we face in our world as adults,” stated Miller.
Staff members hope the children will take what they learn in school and incorporate it into their daily lives at home.
If you’d like to learn more about ways to save energy, Dominion Energy has information here on assessments and free energy kits.
