Engaged with the World

The future of wind and solar

JMU center powers K-12 sustainable energy education across Virginia

As director and education manager of the JMU Center for the Advancement of Sustainable Energy, Remy Pangle (’99) gets to share her enthusiasm for the environment and science with teachers and students across the state.

Pangle trains teachers on using materials in a solar education kit at one of Virginia's 4-H educational centers.
(Photo: Elise Trissel)

CASE serves as the U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind Application Center for Virginia, and JMU is the only university in Virginia providing a wide variety of services under the DOE’s Wind for Schools program.

“If we can get kids excited now about the important issues ... when they’re ready to vote, they’re going to be well-informed on energy issues and able to make good decisions.”
Remy Pangle (’99)

The outreach began in 2010 when the center, then called The Center for Wind Energy, secured its first Wind for Schools grant. Since then, Pangle has been implementing Wind for Schools programs and initiatives, including the annual KidWind Challenge, a competition for elementary-, middle- and high-school students that incorporates engineering, science, alternative energy and sustainability.

Pangle’s latest project, the result of a budding partnership with Virginia Cooperative Extension, involves supplying educational kits for teaching about solar and wind power to the state’s six 4-H educational centers. The 4-H centers teach the material to children who visit them and loan the kits to schools in their regions.

The kits come with six activities in each box. “It’s basically everything you need to do a module on wind energy or solar energy for 25 kids,” Pangle said.

CASE supplies educational kits for teaching about solar and wind power to the state’s six 4-H educational centers and loans the kits to schools in the region.
(Photo: Elise Trissel)

Tammy Stone, science coordinator for Rockingham County Public Schools, said the teaching kits removed a barrier for teachers who don’t have the supplies, and Pangle’s efforts to connect JMU students with RCPS students “is a win-win for both the college students and our students.”

Pangle said she enjoys training educators to teach the material and seeing students solving problems.  And while training the future sustainable energy workforce is a goal of Wind for Schools, Pangle said even students who don’t follow a path to the energy sector receive a real benefit.

“If we can get kids excited now about the important issues, teaching them about renewable energy as an option, as a solution, and tying it to climate change, when they’re ready to vote, they’re going to be well-informed on energy issues and able to make good decisions,” she said.