A group of ninth grade students at Western Wayne High School received the Honorable Mention award in a special PPL contest.
Aidyn Graci and Mitchell Ferraro General Science, students from the high school were the Honorable Mention winners in the PPL Electric THINK! ENERGY Innovation Challenge. The contest required students to develop an interactive and hands-on presentation on energy, natural resources and environmental issues.
Science teacher Dr. Mark Nebzydoski led the challenge for Western Wayne by registering all Western Wayne High School students for free energy conservation kits, which consisted of three compact fluorescent light bulbs, a smart energy power strip, a shower timer, a faucet aerator and water-saving shower head. Each student was then asked to take the kits home, install the energy-saving equipment and survey how much energy was saved due to the use of the equipment.
“The students projects submitted were very creative and entertaining.” Nebzydoski said. “Seeing students learning about energy efficiency and applying it to the real world is the perfect model of how education should work.” “High school students are tomorrow’s homeowners, so reinforcing energy efficiency messages is important.”
The winning students’ project included a video on energy efficiency. They can be found from a link on the Western Wayne Website. https://youtu.be/EDmCGFHw4Lk Winning students each received Beats wireless earbuds. Dr. Nebzydoski received $250 for classroom supplies.
“I am proud of the student’s hard work and achievement,” Dr. Nebzydoski said.
The students really had a lot of fun making the video with the ongoing theme of “Come on, Mr. Nebz!” Throughout the clip, they kept telling their favorite teacher to be more careful about energy usage in his classroom.
Mitchell Ferraro, who of the winning students who aspires to be a social studies teacher, really liked how fun it was to make the video and tell Mr. Nebz what to do throughout it.
Fellow video creator Aidyn Graci, who aspires to study business one day be very successful, was relieved when they finished the project. “I was glad to get to the end and see our hard work pay off,” he said.
PPL Electric Utilities, in conjunction with National Energy Foundation (NEF) and the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE), is proud to sponsor the THINK! ENERGY with E-power educational program. There are three program offerings for various grade levels and each is designed to provide teachers and students with energy education. All program offerings are free and are correlated to Pennsylvania learning standards.
Please see contest link https://thinkenergy.org/ppl-innovation/teachers/
From left: Dr. Mark Nebzydoski, Mitchell Ferraro, and Aidyn Graci.
