Painting Chicago Green

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 09:21:01 -0400

August 19-20 a group of 16 GET Citians trekked from Lansing to Chicago to expand their work on green energy technologies. We toured the Museum of Science & Industry's Green and Wired House where youth were able to see principles of energy efficiency, conservation, and renewable forms in action. After taking a fun detour to Navy Pier, youth spent a full morning learning about and experimenting with batteries and fuel cells in Dr. Vijay Ramani's electrochemistry labs in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology. They were challenged with a homework assignment to determine the amount of Platinum required to run a 50,000 watt fuel cell car based on the results of a carbon platinum membrane plot of voltage v. current density. We are happy to report that the problem was solved on the train by the time we hit Battle Creek! The day ended at the Chicago Center for Green Technology.

Make that Change

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:33:43 -0500

Jazzy, Chantalice and Camryn visited their school, Pleasant View Elementary, in search of incandescent bulbs that could be replaced with with CFLs. In this video, they explain why that’s important. It also looks like a lot of fun!

Coal Rap

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:34:59 -0500

In this video rap, we tell you the story of coal: how it is harvested and its impact on the environment. This is important because many electricity plants use coal to make electricity.

Written and produced by Theresa and Bianca

Decaying plants form the coal,
Mountain top removal blows
Off the tops of mountains.
We dig up the coal and put it on a train.
The train ships it to the power plant,
Where we make electricity.

Repower America

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:57:22 -0500

Aaron Quinney and Nick Clark, Mid-Michigan reps for Repower America, came by the club to visit with GET City today. Nick and Aaron talked to the club about how we all have tools and resources to solve the climate crisis, by using less energy, using it more efficiently, and telling people how important it is to take action.

Daryll was inspired by Aaron and Nick’s visit, and recorded his own video testimony for the wall. We’re working on getting it posted on the Repower America site, but for now, here it is:

Change a light, Change Michigan (Update)

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 17:40:34 -0500

Did you know that incandescent light bulbs use five times as much energy as compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), causing more coal to be burned and more carbon to be emitted into the atmosphere? GET City youth do, and they are doing something about it! During November and December, the youth in GET City have been comparing the differences in how much energy it takes to power an incandescent light bulb versus a CFL and how much light and heat energy each of the bulb types produces.

They have they been converting their own energy into electricity using a handheld DC generator, to get a feel for how much power 60 Watts really is, and they have used their new knowledge to educate others in their families and communities on the importance of using energy efficient bulbs. They set a goal of personally getting 1000 bulbs changed in their community. They have already changed 346!