Folks,
The future of America is in good hands. I had the chance today to
participate in "The Great American Teach-In" at Auburndale Central
Elementary School. They had a very well structured and organized program,
which gave me the opportunity to address two separate groups of fourth and
fifth graders. I spent about 20 minutes in the classroom and then spent ten
minutes with them outside at the Electric Truck. At the end they all
gathered together outside to see my car follow a gasoline dune buggy drive
around the PE field.
One little girl asked, while I was explaining a serial hybrid, "where do you
put the cereal?" What a great question.
I told the children they are the future of America. I asked if they knew
the story of Paul Revere? I told them, like Paul Revere, I was there to
tell them the Electric cars are coming. We talked about the flexibility of
Electric vehicles because they use electricity generated from a wide variety
of energy sources.
We went over the list, consisting of solar, wind, Hydro electric, nuclear,
geo thermal, tidal and fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil. We had fun
with that for a while and then we went into parallel and serial hybrids and
battery electric vehicles. You might think this is too much for these young
people, but I used some very nice schematics from an MIT paper. I explained
that the Toyota Prius is a parallel hybrid and that both the Gasoline engine
and the electric motor drive the wheels. I mentioned that in the Chevy
Volt, a serial hybrid, only the electric motor drives the wheels.
This is the fun part, that they related to very well. I asked them if they
knew the song that tells about the dry bones. The leg bone's connected to
the hipbone etc. Well they really got into, . . . the gasoline engine's
connected to the generator the generator's connected to the battery and the
battery's connected to the electric motor and the electric motor's connected
the wheels and the wheels go round and round. The whole class was chanting
the litany of connections in a serial hybrid. Who would have thought?
We went from there to the Battery Electric vehicle with just the battery and
the electric motor. It was easy to make the point about the simplicity of
the BEV. They caught on to that right away.
So, I would like to encourage you to visit these younger children at their
schools. You don't have to talk down to them, but you do need to work at
their level. They are very smart and very interested in energy and the
environment and what we all are doing.
The experience was very rewarding.
Cheers,
Al Lococo
www.evprogress.org
Think Globally, Act Locally!
Plug-in, we have the technology, the NiMH powered RAV4 EV is the proof.
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