This is pretty cool: The Eudora High School Video Club in Eudora, Kan., has produced a time-lapse video of the school’s recent turbine installation. Check it out at the conclusion of this story – but be prepared to get dizzy around 1:55 when they attach the camera to the turbine and hoist it onto the tower with a crane.
Eudora’s turbine raising came about as part of the federal Wind for Schools project. As we reported, four Kansas school districts – Eudora, Central Plains, Halstead-Bentley and Jefferson West – recently received each got $5,000 in funding from the USDA’s Rural Business Enterprise Grant program, which awards federal funding to organizations that help promote small and emerging rural business creation and expansion in rural communities.
The Wind for Schools project supports schools with installing wind turbines to educate students on the importance of wind as an alternative energy source, and to promote rural renewable energy jobs. In Kansas, the project is administered by Kansas State University’s (KSU’s) Wind Applications Center, which has installed turbines at 13 schools in the state to date. Seven more are currently under development, including the four USDA-funded installations.
“Even smaller projects, such as these four advanced by the wind energy team at Kansas State University, represent an important step in the right direction,” said Charles Newcomb, project lead for Wind Powering America’s Wind for Schools project. “Wind energy provides significant jobs and economic development impacts that are realized when the right policies and public support are brought to bear. And, from an industry growth perspective, the lessons that these students are learning by navigating the federal incentive landscape will prove invaluable and relevant as they enter the wind energy workforce as the project developers, analysts, and engineers of tomorrow.”