By combining green initiatives with science and drone technology, students are now coming up with answers. Their hope is that the data they've uncovered will lead to repairs at the school and better, more energy-efficient decision-making in the future.
In the process the high schoolers are learning about ways to combine civic engagement, classroom learning, independent study, drone technology and grant funding into initiatives that serve local schools and school districts.
Nicholas Gagnon, science teacher and academic chair at Chippewa Falls High School, advises the student Green Team. He also oversees two drone projects at the school.
One of his goals is to empower students to become problem-solvers, to address energy waste at the schools.
Gagnon and the Green Team decided to use drones to study the school's carbon footprint and try to reduce energy consumption districtwide after receiving a grant to purchase dual-imaging (thermal and visual) drones.
After receiving the drones, Gagnon helped students to earn their remote pilot certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration.
"These students have the choice to get their commercial drone pilots license after they successfully complete the FAA-107 exam," he said.
With this certification, students earn FAA credentials that can be applied to jobs across multiple industry sectors. This provides an opportunity for those students to explore a multitude of careers while learning about green science and technology.
ENERGY REDUCTION INITIATIVE
Heat leaks from buildings. Lighting may be energy inefficient. But addressing this was going to be hard.
First, Chippewa Falls students needed to find where the heat was leaking the worst, and which light bulbs needed to be replaced at the schools.
Using a grant from the Wisconsin K-12 Energy Education Program, the school purchased the drones that allowed students to look at the school from every angle. The goal was to see how they could reduce energy usage, something that helps the environment while increasing cost-efficiency for each individual school, and the district overall.
Gagnon wanted to show students the many ways that drones could be used in service of the school community. The goal was to identify trouble spots and prioritize repair of the most egregious locations, environmentally speaking, in the school structures.
As shown in a video, the students used drones and thermal cameras to identify areas of heat loss at the school.
In the video's black and white images, lighter shades show warmth. That could include things like car engines, heating vents and open doors. Cold areas are dark in tone, like sheets of ice or regions of the school in the shade.
Adding color to the visuals makes it easier to see gradients in the images. The colors help lay people understand, and visualize, where there is heat loss, and then imagine ways to improve energy efficiency.
In the colored versions, reds and oranges show the most heat being emitted. Blues and purples show colder subjects.
Gagnon's students have spent months analyzing each of the district's building envelopes using a thermal imaging drone to find "heat leaks." Now they've organized that data, and compiled it with the facilities long-term master plan, to prioritize areas that need repair.
The students demonstrated areas where the schools need attention. This has led to more in-depth conversations about the school's energy use.
Three high school juniors in Chippewa Falls are now working on independent projects to come up with ways to reduce the school's energy usage.
Bella Biederman, Kamryn Glamann and Maddie Hunt are part of the Green Team. Over the summer, they finished the remote pilot coursework and passed the FAA-107 exam. That means that all three students are now commercial drone pilots.
"The drone program is, I'm fairly sure, like, a relatively new opportunity that we provide. So you take a course that teaches you everything you need to know about the airspace guidelines and basically, how you fly your drone," Biederman said. "Then at the end after you've gone through, I think it's, like, eight chapters, you take a test at the airport to get your license."
The young women completed the online course components by themselves over the summer, Hunt said.
"Instead of in a class, we did it together over the summer, independently. So then at the beginning of this school year, we were able to fly drones around the school district and collect the data," Hunt said.
Currently, these students are working on a PSC grant to secure funding to find the best way to reduce energy consumption in the district. These PSC grant's are worth up to $1,000,000, Gagnon said.
"Last year, we were in a group together for an AP course seminar. And our success in that class drove us. We were chosen to write the grant because of our writing skills and our presentation skills and all our research skills," Glamann said.
With their findings comes a lot of responsibility. These students want to do something useful with the data they compile. That means communicating with school administrators.
"We've met and talked to our superintendent, Jeff Holmes. We've talked to Susan Kern (the executive director of curriculum and instruction) and every single other building principal," Hunt said.
But the work doesn't stop there. On Monday, these students went to Madison to a climate convention to speak to experts about the environment and energy efficiency, Biederman said.
"We were invited to this conference. Their goal in the future is to engage with professional people under the age of 35. But we're all 16-year-olds going to this conference, which is not a normal thing. It's a big deal. A huge honor," Biederman said.
©2022 The Chippewa Herald, Chippewa Falls, Wisc. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
