Champions of renewable energy

Sugar Maple Nature School’s students are proving their prowess in hands-on scientific work once again.

Last weekend, two teams from the nature-based school in the Town of Saukville won the state KidWind Challenge in Madison, a competition that allows students to show off their skills in renewable energy design and problem solving, and will compete May 17 to 21 at the Worlds Competition in Phoenix.

The Wind Whisperers, a team of third and fifth-grade students, took first place in the elementary wind division with an innovative wind turbine design while a sixth-grade team took first place in the solar division.

The Wind Whisperers team included third-grader Lydia Schroeder, who suggested modeling the blades of the team’s turbine after a falcon diving, Cindy Raimer, the school’s director of education, said.

“The boys weren’t listening to her,” Raimer said, so Lydia asked their teacher and coach Jacob Hess to make them anyway.

Lydia told Hess, “I’m going to test them and let the results speak for themselves,” Raimer said.

It’s a good thing she did, Raimer said, since her design produced results 15 points higher than the other blades.

“She did a fantastic job. Her teacher called her fierce,” Raimer said.

Teams in the competition design their turbines from the ground up — everything from the number of blades to their shape — then test them in a wind tunnel.

They are judged on how much power is generated in the wind tunnel for 30 seconds, a test run three times.

The Wind Whisperers’ turbine had the highest energy output of any team at the competition, including the high school teams, Raimer said.

At the competition, team members must also present their project — they’re judged on everything from their grammar and spelling to the aesthetics and data behind their work, as well as whether they worked as a team — and the Wind Whisperers received 99 of 100 points, Raimer said.

The teams also competed in instant challenges, she said, including one in which they were given a cluster of wires and a meter to measure current and output and in 20 minutes had to determine which wire was faulty.

In addition to Lydia, the team also included fellow third-grader Louie Menghe and fifth-graders Bentley Neumann, Gideon VanSpeybroeck and Finn Rosengren.

The school’s winning solar team designed a foster home, complete with fairy lights, a working water pump and other features that were all powered with solar energy, Raimer said, noting it was tested on overall function. Members of that team included sixth-graders Liam Trainor, Isaac Fahrenkrug, Robin Teske and O Seaghdha Reilly, and the coach was teacher Allison Servais.

Several of the students were on last year’s winning elementary wind challenge team, Raimer noted.

While only two of the school’s teams are moving on, every student at Sugar Maple School took part in the competition, Raimer noted.

“The competition is fantastic,” she said. “There are so many ways it stretches the students. It’s hands-on learning that teaches students to work as a team. There is so much critical thinking, problem solving involved. The skills they learn are incredible, and they transfer well to real life.”

Sugar Maple School, a charter school affiliated with the Northern Ozaukee School District, is located at Ozaukee County’s Hawthorne Hills Park.

This is the third year the school competed in the KidWind competition, Raimer said, noting it is a good fit for the school, which is dedicated to providing an experiential education that integrates science, technology, engineering and math skills, environmental stewardship and community engagement.