Published: July 07, 2009 10:42 pm      

One bright idea

ECMS students participate in science program for girls

HUNTINGTON — A girl peddled her bike furiously in a conference room at the Pullman Plaza Hotel in Huntington on Tuesday.

The wheels, held above the ground by a metal support, spun along with the electric fan it was powering. The wind ruffled the feathers of the colorful mask she wore, a remnant of practice for a skit to teach others about conserving energy.

Earlier in the day, Avery Tomaselli, 13, who attends East Carter Middle School in Grayson, had stripped and crimped electrical wires to connect the bike to an electrical board. The bike is also connected to a generator. Peddling it creates enough energy to run a hair dryer, boil water or operate incandescent, fluorescent or LED light bulbs.

Tomaselli is one of four girls from ECMS who traveled to Huntington this week with science teacher Beverly McDavid as part of the Ohio Energy Project’s Activating and Energizing Girls in Science program.

The program has been in Ohio for eight years, but this is the first time it’s been offered in other states, said Debby Yerkes, executive director of the Ohio Energy Project. The program was also offered in Indiana this year.

The Ohio Energy Project provides education resources for teachers and students on topics such as conservation and alternative energy.

Six schools from Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio attended the event.

The program helps encourage girls to think about science, AEGIS Technical Coordinator Kurt Lehmkuhl said.

“It really kind of helps show them that guys aren’t the only ones born with this innate ability to fix things,” he said.

Tomaselli said the boys at ECMS would have a difficult time believing the four girls created the bike themselves without lots of help from a teacher.

“They think ‘Oh, I can’t do it, it’ll be twice as hard for the girls,’” she said.

The girls worked on wiring their bikes on Monday and Tuesday and taught lessons based on the energy bike on Wednesday. They worked with 160 components to build the energy bike.

Participants worked off a schematic showing them where wires needed to be attached to the electrical board. Light bulbs and light switches were already in place.

McDavid said she was proud of the work her students had done.

“It was very exciting to see them work that hard and then those bulbs light up,” she said.

In addition to the experience, the girls also get to take the bike back to their school. It would have cost the school $5,000 to buy, but the program is providing it free, McDavid said. They’ll use it in the fall to teach fellow students a little of what they’ve learned.

The four students practiced their teaching skills on Tuesday dancing and jumping around a hall in the hotel wearing masks. One held a crown.

Taylor Burnett, 13, also from ECMS, said the group was planning a skit about a light bulb prom. They play the different types of light bulbs and the one that dances the longest, the LED bulb, is crowned the prom queen.

The girls said they saw LED bulbs use less energy because they stayed on longer after the girls peddled to light them. They found Incandescent bulbs use more energy because they had to peddle longer and harder to get them to light up.

McDavid said the experience of peddling the bikes showed her students that energy has a source.

“You don’t just flip a switch and ... Voila!” she said. “The energy’s got to come from somewhere.”

AEGIS participants from East Carter Middle School were Tomaselli, Burnett, Macy Dyer, 12, and Sanya Cordova, 12.

KATIE BRANDENBURG can be reached at kbrandenburg@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2657.