Energy Works Michigan’s Education Director, Laura Holladay, was in Fort Collins Colorado, participating in a “WindSenators” Master Teacher Workshop. This one-week training program, offered by the KidWind Project, brought together 30 teachers from across the United States to become experts and leaders in wind energy education for their home states.
“Energy Works Michigan already has an established relationship with the KidWind Project,” explains Laura. “We’ve been using lessons from their WindWise Education curriculum with our partner Middle and High School teachers.” The WindSenators program will help to strengthen that partnership, and it will allow Laura to bring an even more comprehensive set of wind education resources to teachers across Michigan.
The WindSenators Workshop boasts an exciting agenda of activities, including tours of the National Wind Technology Center and a wind turbine blade manufacturing plant. The WindSenators program operates on a “train-the-trainer” approach – the teachers participating in the workshop are to be leaders for their own states, to share what they have learned with other teachers. Now that Laura has completed the week’s training, she has returned to Michigan as a WindSenator – certified to facilitate teacher workshops, outreach events, and KidWind challenge events throughout the region.
Laura took a moment to write to us from the training workshop: “So far, the program is fantastic – I feel so lucky to be here! I can’t wait to bring these lessons and materials back and to share what I’ve learned with other teachers in my home state.”
Laura experiments with educational materials from the KidWind project.