Elementary News

•  Renewable Energy

Currently the news is filled with the Conference of the Parties in Glasgow known as Cop26. It’s great to learn that many of the world’s leaders are coming together for the twenty-sixth time about climate control. Hopefully, the promises made, past and present, will bring about the stated goals of making the planet safer for the future. In the school we have also been discussing climate change and encouraged the children to both understand the issues and consider actions for change. This is the topic of the birthday quiz in the elementary assembly on Monday.

The fourth grade had a trip this week with the theme of renewable energy. Students made stops at a hydrogen station, a hydroelectric plant and a wind farm. At each stop they explored how the renewable energy was harnessed, used and what variables are considered in the creation of the different forms of energy. I had a chat with four students about the trip and they shared some interesting observations from their experiences. One fourth grader described in detail how hydrogen is a different form of electricity and at the station he got to see how busses and cars were filled up. He was excited to connect the word hydrogen with the signs he’s been reading off the Aberdeen buses.  Another fourth grader added that the process was expensive and until more hydrogen stations are built, it is practical to only use the vehicles on shorter journeys. Some students got to sit in a hydrogen vehicle. On a humorous note it was said that not all fourth graders are ready to be drivers!

Along the Don River, at a second stop for the trip, the students described how electricity could be created from water. They were particularly impressed by the use of Archimedes screw. There were some different recollections about how many households the energy from the river was powering, but each fourth grader appreciated the renewable process and the difficulties when the water flows were clogged by debris.

A final stop was to a wind farm. The students got to go into a turbine as they discussed how the structures were built and how they worked. The fourth graders learned a lot about the process of collecting wind energy. They discovered there is a need to adjust the angle of the blades of the turbine regularly and to use concrete to anchor the turbine. That there are three different floors in each turbine and that the speed of the rotation needs to be controlled, also surprised them.

After listening to the fourth graders it was easy to grasp the impact such direct experiences had on their understanding of how energy can come from renewable sources. They also appreciated why these ‘greener’ sources of power can be part of the solution to the problems being discussed at the COP26.

Congratulations to the fourth grade teachers, Mr Bertolotto and Mrs Davies, for planning and organising this wonderful opportunity for their students to learn first hand about the use of renewable energy. I’d expect the visits to provide a lot of ‘energy’ for future discussions on what can be done to control climate change.

• Parent-Teacher Conferences

I hope your parent-teacher conferences are very productive next week, and that those follow-up talks at home serve to both reward the effort your children are making and to provide clear expectations about future goals and how to achieve them. The formal conferences are part of a vibrant communication process that should continue with regular feedback all year between and amongst parents, students and teachers.

Don Newbury

Elementary Principal