Campus turbine gives Hood River teens the (wind) power

[depakid]

The small wind turbine is now a fixture beside the football field at Hood River Valley High School. It was the idea and passion of science classes and the Earth Club, which was inspired to make Hood River's famous wind work for the community.
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They are teenagers who love science, who support alternative energy, who know old ideas about natural resources have to change. With the installation this fall of a wind turbine next to the Henderson Community Stadium, the members of the Hood River Valley High School Earth Club not only turned their beliefs into practice but also learned a valuable lesson in community involvement.

The project, part of the curriculum for the school's alternative energy resources class, inspired the club's dozen members to brainstorm ways to make Hood River's famous wind really work for the local good.

To these teens and many of their generation, understanding and promoting alternative, renewable energy is a given. They want more recycling bins on school grounds and energetically embrace other green projects. Not to mention, they know they can play a bigger role for the environment by teaching their elders.

"People see kids jumping on alternative energy," said Ted Cramer, the science teacher who advises the Earth Club. "And they're dragging their parents into it."

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Cramer had already met with Energy Trust of Oregon, and he helped the club make a formal application to the trust's small wind program. But the students also had to convince the school board and residents around the 1,200-student high school, where the turbine would stand next to the Eagles' football stadium -- the school building most visited by Hood River adults.

Wind turbines are a part of the agricultural landscape around Hood River, and towering wind farms rise from the Columbia River Gorge just to the east. But they are controversial and not popular with everyone.

"The school board was not necessarily in favor of it," Superintendent Pat Evenson-Brady said. "With the development of huge wind turbines out here, it's not necessarily a popular political decision.

More: http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2009/01/hood_river_teens_get_the_wind.html