Energy for ME

Recently, I went to the Energy for ME Summer Institute at Schoodic SERC.

I was asked to give a couple of guest lectures on the future of energy supply in Maine, particularly highlighting the need for STEM skills in middle and high schools so Mainers can understand and control our energy supply better, but also highlighting renewable energy made right here in Maine.

I've uploaded the slideshow I used to the public side of my Google Docs page so you can see it if you'd like to. It's a little difficult to get all my points without the lecture, but you should get the drift of most.

Try the STEM word problem. I made one mistake in drafting the text of this problem. There's a dozen Womerlippi Farm free-range eggs and a package of home-grown bacon (or some more vegan gift) to the Unity College or Maine school student that can find this now-deliberate error.

This was a fun assignment for me. Energy for ME is run by the Island Institute. Which great "think and do" tank , as a very long time fan of Maine and Scottish islands, I am highly supportive of.

I made sure to take lots of books and posters and techy things, anemometers and solar panels and wotnot, for the middle- and high-schoolers and their teachers and parents to look at.

As always I enjoyed the SERC setting and the granite and sea air of the Schoodic peninsula. Fifteen million dollars of ARRA and other recent federal funding has made this place a superb gathering and conference center.*

A big Thumbs Up to the Island Institute and their Energy for ME collaborators and to the staff of SERC. Jolly well done.

*Our own Conservation Law Enforcement program students will be early beneficiaries this fall, as they show up for their new semester program organized by Associate Professor Tim "the Colonel" Peabody and collaborators throughout the federal and state conservation law community.