At first thought, speech therapy and environmental sustainability do not seem to have much in common. Speech therapy is a very exclusive profession that focuses mainly on one area: speech. Mostly a speech therapist works at a school, hospital, or a rehabilitation center, where they work with people who have problems with speech. The environment is not something speech therapists deal with on a daily basis. The most a speech therapist thinks about the environment is driving to and from work. So, how can speech therapy and environmental sustainability relate? Well, as mentioned earlier speech therapist often find their jobs at schools. Schools have a huge impact on the environment. All the paper and electricity they consume are just a few of the many resources schools consume on a daily basis. Now the next question is, are schools doing anything to lessen their huge environmental impact?
Newcomerstown Exempted Village Schools is a school district in mid-eastern Ohio that is taking steps to make their environmental impact a little smaller. It’s a fairly small district, with no more than around 100 kids per graduating class. The district is made up of four schools; two elementary schools, a middle school, and a high school. Newcomerstown Schools has started a project to help reduce the amount of energy they consume on a daily basis.
In mid August of 2010 Solar Vision LLC of Columbus began constructing and 800-panel solar array system for the West Elementary and High School. The project was completed in roughly a month with little to no problems. Solar Vision used an energy grant to fund the project completely. Newcomerstown Schools and community have nothing invested in it, but will have so much to gain. The elementary school was equipped with a 68 kilowatt-enough to power 23 typical homes, and a 128 kilowatt system at the high school- enough to power approximately 40 homes (NCT Green Power). Powering 63 homes in a small town like Newcomerstown is quite a big deal. The interesting thing about the project is that the power produced by the panels does not go directly to the schools. Instead, that power goes to the community, and in return Solar Vision pays for 15% of the schools electric bill- or about $25,000 per year. So, not only does the school benefit from the project but the community does as well.
Another similar project the school recently completed was a 100-foot wind turbine at the elementary school. The turbine was funded completely by a grant from The Voinovich School at Ohio University. The Voinovich School received a $100,000 dollar grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission, which in turn granted $45,000 of that to Newcomerstown’s West Elementary for the construction of the wind turbine. The 100-foot tall turbine with 23-foot rotors produces roughly 10 kilowatts of power, which goes directly to the elementary (NCT Green Power). This amounts to about $3,000 on annual electricity savings. The turbine is also equipped with a device that students can use to monitor the energy produced by the turbine. That is great because it gets the students involved with conserving energy at a young age.
Newcomerstown West Elementary has also recently integrated the NEED system of education in its curriculum. NEED is the National Energy Education Development Project. The NEED project began back in 1980 as a one-day celebration of energy education (About NEED). 30 years later the NEED project has branched out to thousands of schools across the country. The project was designed to educate young people about the environment and how to protect it. NEED recently aligned its entire curriculum portfolio to state science standards (About NEED). This meant that now teachers could continue to educate students about the environment, without jeopardizing their state-mandated curriculum. Bringing the NEED project into schools will only help society in the long run. The only way to ensure our future is educate the people who will be running it.
The environmental projects Newcomerstown Schools have begun should be a wake up call to all schools. Newcomerstown Schools project is the largest in a five-state area. That is shocking considering the district is also one of the smallest in the surrounding area. There needs to be more grants like the ones used in the Newcomerstown Schools’ projects. If all schools were given the opportunity to harness solar and wind power and use it to educate students our nation would be better as a whole. Starting the education of environmental sustainability young is key in that students will be brought up caring, and being educated about the environment.
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