Community Corner
KidWind Competition Returns To Valley
The student projects will be judged by local industry partners and community leaders, including representatives from MSA Consulting.
From KidWind: A partnership of Coachella Valley schools, College of the Desert and civic partners will hold the eighth annual KidWind Regional Competition on Saturday, Feb. 24.
About 120 local middle and high school students will compete in the fascinating regional event, building and demonstrating their working wind turbine models, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Desert Hot Springs High School, 65850 Pierson Blvd., Desert Hot Springs.
The student projects will be judged by local industry partners and community leaders, including representatives from MSA Consulting and Riverside County EDA/Workforce. This year’s competition is jointly sponsored by Palm Springs Unified School District, College of the Desert, OneFuture Coachella Valley, and SMaRT Education. This is the eighth annual competition organized by the partnership.
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This year’s event will be facilitated by Tim Smyth and Michael Phelan. The KidWind events in the region were started by the California Regional Consortium for Engineering Advances in Technical Education (CREATE) office at College of the Canyons through funding by the National Science Foundation, in partnership with the OneFuture Coachella Valley Advanced Technology Industry Council.
The KidWind program helps teachers learn about wind energy technology, receive curriculum and materials for integrating wind energy instruction into their classes, and form student teams for a regional competition. KidWind was started by a sixth-grade California science teacher, Michael Arquin, who was not satisfied with the products available to teach children about wind energy science. KidWind creates affordable classroom-ready materials and free downloadable print materials to support teachers and students all over the world. For those who do not have the financial ability to purchase the materials, they also offer a giveaway program. Since founding the company in 2004, he has developed and is selling wind energy kits online. Visit KidWind at http://learn.kidwind.org/.
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For more information, contact Larry McLaughlin at College of the Desert at lmclaughlin@collegeofthedesert.edu or (760) 773-2595; Kim McNulty at OneFuture Coachella Valley at kim@onefuturecv.org or (760) 413-5990; Tim Smyth at PSUSD at tsmyth@psusd.us or (951) 970-8954; or Maria Wren at SMaRT Education at mariawren@smarteducation.us or (760) 219-5496.
Image Via Shuttershock
