Seventh Graders Embrace Energy Commission

Last summer, the Melrose Energy Commission secured a state grant that enabled two Melrose Middle School science teachers - Nancy Naslas and Eric D'Antonio - to spend five days at the National Energy Education Development conference in Alexandria, Va. Those five days turned into dozens of interesting, and highly relevant, energy projects.

The grant money, administered by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, was the result of Melrose residents making voluntary contributions from their utility bills to support clean energy. MTC provided matching funds, enabling Naslas and D'Antonio to attend the NEED conference, where they learned exciting new methods to teach their seventh-grade students about energy and conservation.

Using materials provided by NEED, students spent the school year working with models of solar cells, wind turbines, hydrogen fuel cell cars, and other hands-on classroom projects. Naslas's students culminated their efforts with an energy expo in which they developed their own teaching materials. Students paired off to study specific topics and created posters that highlighted their research. They then presented this material to their own class as well as other seventh-grade classes. The movie posters, more than 40 of them, are displayed on the third floor of the middle school.

"With the increasing prices of energy these days, this has become a hot topic," said Naslas, who teaches four seventh-grade science classes and a total of 85 students. "I really liked this approach. This kind of project makes it more current, more a part of daily lives. The students had to learn the material to teach it to their peers. And now the whole school can see the posters and learn what they learned."

Topics included the pros and cons of energy sources such as petroleum, natural gas, coal, propane, uranium, hydropower, biomanss, solar, wind and geothermal.

"The most important thing we can do as teachers," said Naslas, "is to teach our students how to find the facts."

A major focus was the environmental impacts of different energy sources. "Now I'm hearing more talk about hybrids and less about Hummers," Naslas said. "Kids are starting to think that it's cooler to have a hybrid."

In other energy-related news, due to overwhelmingly positive feedback from students and teachers about last year's National Energy Education Development conference, the Melrose Energy Commission is arranging for two more Melrose teachers to attend the event this summer. Utilizing grant money from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, high school science teachers Marty Morse and Jim DiSanto will attend the 2008 NEED conference in Las Vegas July 20-24. DiSanto is also the school's energy manager.

June 17, 2008