Solar go-kart drives home a point
Fourth-graders don’t know they’re learning – they’re too busy having fun
A little go-kart is conveying a big idea about what transportation and energy use might look like in the future.
After taking a spin in the solar-powered go-kart, students at John Newbery Elementary learn more about renewable energy from Chelan County PUD's Bob Bauer.
Each year in May, every fourth-grader in the Wenatchee School District gets to drive Chelan County PUD’s solar-powered go-kart. It’s part of a unit on electricity that culminates in a field trip to Rocky Reach Dam.
The go-kart, powered by a 600-watt solar panel, helps drive home the point that solar power can be used to perform many common tasks – some mundane, and some exceedingly fun.
Led by PUD Education Specialist Bob Bauer, students list off the items in their classroom that use electricity: the pencil sharpener, coffeemaker, computers, and lights. Bauer tells them that solar panels installed permanently at their schools are generating enough electricity to power all those things.
The Alcoa Community Solar Endowment and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers installed solar arrays at all schools in the county in 2004-06.
Jim White, senior energy conservation engineer at the PUD, built the go-kart. It’s been used in classrooms for several years.
The field experience at Rocky Reach Dam is called River of Power. More than 700 fourth-graders from public and private schools in Chelan County participate in the four-day event. This year’s event is May 26-29.
Hands-on activities acquaint students with hydropower, the world of salmon, and basic principles of electricity generation. Students build model dams out of sand and cardboard, draw fish, measure the power of falling water and watch corn pop in a solar popper, among other lessons.
River of Power was developed in partnership with the Wenatchee School District. Teachers spend several weeks in the classroom each spring teaching about electricity, hydropower, the history of the Columbia River and renewable energy.
