Overview
In September 2021, the Biofuels Business and Outreach sub-team partnered with Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) of Suffolk County, NY. The team wrote three lesson plans for a target audience of grades 6-12 on the topics Climate Change and Ocean Health, Biofuels, and Renewable Energy and Oceans, which will include activities or demonstrations. The educators of CCE Suffolk plan to add these lessons to their brochure and present them to local students at schools, libraries, and their own facilities.
In conjunction with this, the team is also altering the blueprints of the Ithaca PowerHouse that CCE Suffolk can build to repurpose as a portable sustainability museum. The PowerHouse is a tiny home on a trailer that will feature exhibits on the lesson plans the team is writing, and will be brought to the presentations the educators at CCE Suffolk give. The PowerHouse will feature between six and nine exhibits, with up to three per lesson plan. For the Climate Change and Ocean Health lesson plan, the team is designing exhibits on slowing ocean currents, one on rising sea levels, and one on carbon emissions expelled from various nations. For the Biofuels lesson plan, the team is designing exhibits on the life cycle of greenhouse gasses, one displaying how to create and use algae biofuels, and a mini greenhouse. For the Renewable Energy and Oceans lesson plan, the team is designing exhibits on tidal energy, renewable vs nonrenewable energy, and offshore wind and solar farms.
As of fall 2022, the team has ended their partnership with CCE Suffolk due to funding issues, but is seeking other community partners and making the project less specific to Long Island. They also have an ESW Build Day grant to build two of the PowerHouse exhibits in spring 2023.
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