Wind Farm Visit

Today I visited Pioneer Prairie Wind Farm with members of my environmental sociology class (which is a great class by the way). It is located on the border of Minnesota and Iowa with the turbines in Iowa and the offices in Leroy, Minnesota. It was very interesting and informative. We even were allowed the chance to go inside the turbine but unfortunately were not allowed to climb the 80 meter ladder to the top. The trip was intriguing for a number of reasons. First and foremost I enjoy learning about environmental and energy related issues but on top of this it made me think about many educationally relevant issues.

As a future biology (and hopefully environmental studies) teacher, I have thought a lot about encouraging students to pursue careers in environmental fields or at least take an interest in environmental, climate, and energy related issues. One way to spark interest would be to take a field trip to a nearby wind farm or other place where alternative energy is produced. I definitely learned more by visiting this wind farm than any book, teacher, video, or website could teach me. Students of all ages could/would enjoy visiting a wind farm or similar place. On top of this, wind may be our future (for countless reasons that i will not get into at this moment). As a result of this trip I began to think of extremely important careers that should also be considered environmental careers. I have usually thought of environmental careers as requiring a significant amount of academic training (usually more than a 2 year program) even if the job does not pay that well; however, today I realized that turbine mechanics (solar mechanics, etc...) should also be considered environmental careers. These jobs don't require a 4 year college degree let alone grad school but they do allow us to pursue a more sustainable future. These jobs are in high demand, only require a 2 year technical degree, and I imagine pay a "sufficient," for lack of a better word, amount. They are also extremely hands on and would allow an individual who is concerned with the well being of the environment or our dependence on fossil fuels or implementing cheaper sources of energy to promote all of these goals without having to attend more than 2 years of school after graduation or sit behind a desk making policy or in front of computer that models climate change. These sorts of mechanics and technicians should definitely be considered as having environmental jobs.

Globalization, which have discussed at length in almost all of my education classes, was also extremely evident in today's trip to Pioneer Prairie Wind Farm. The farm is in Iowa with an office in Minnesota. It is one of many farms owned by Horizon Wind Energy which I believe has its headquarters in Texas. Horizon is owned by EDP which stands for Energy de Portugal (obviously a Portuguese company) and the turbines are made by a prominent Danish company called Vestas. Globalization is clearly responsible for all of these interactions. I thought this was pretty cool and further perpetuated the importance of preparing our future students (and ourselves for that matter) for an increasingly global world. Today was awesome and I recommend that all of you visit a wind farm if presented with the opportunity. Below are links for some of the companies involved in Pioneer Prairie Wind Farm.

http://www.horizonwind.com/home/

http://www.vestas.com/

Chocolate Milk

There has been a lot of talk about the problem of unhealthy food in schools. People have been struggling to implement healthier food in school lunches and the vending machines in schools for a number of years. My dad is a dentist and he has worked adamantly to make sure that pop machines were not turned on during school hours in Bloomington. It is obvious that the types of food children are eating today play a significant role in the higher levels of obesity, diabetes, and teeth/gum health issues like cavities. On the other hand it is also obvious that the higher levels of obesity and diabetes in our nation is due to the fact that we have affinity to technology, t.v., video games, computers, and sedentary lifestyles. I think that if we are going to accurately address our nations health crisis, we need to attack the problem from all sides. This includes encouraging more exercise as well as healthier diets.

In class a few weeks we discussed a controversial competition in which Decorah students were encouraged to drink more chocolate milk than other competing schools. Our class discussed many valid points about why this is problematic. This competition encouraged mass consumption of a beverage that is extremely high in sugar content and at the same time discouraged the consumption of normal (healthier) milk. On top of this, the argument presented by the organizers of this competition described chocolate milk as healthier than Gatorade. Perhaps we should not be comparing things to Gatorade however because Gatorade is not healthy in the first place. That is like saying we should have a competition to encourage high schoolers to smoke as many cigarettes as possible because cigarettes are better than crack. It's a pretty silly argument. If this competition is to encourage more consumption of milk by students then this honorable but why not encourage the consumption of white milk as well instead of a competition focused solely on the consumption of chocolate milk. Likewise, this sort of competition may perpetuate the idea in kids that there needs to be a reward for doing something beneficial (i.e. prize for drinking milk) or else it is not worthwhile.