Groups sharing wind knowledge

One of our long-term and ongoing goals is to develop ways to actively engage our secondary students as we prepare them for the workplace.

One of our strategies is to partner with community enterprises — whether non-profits or businesses, or others — to develop learning opportunities that powerfully impact our students’ futures.

To that end, we came into contact this past fall with a couple of groups who themselves partner to take advantage of one of our most prevalent natural resources: wind.

Our computer Smart Labs at our three middle schools and Clovis High School have extensive curricula covering what is known as STEAM initiatives (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics).

General topics include: circuitry, computer graphics, digital communications, mechanics and structures, robotics and control technology, scientific data and analysis, software engineering, and sustainability.

As an extension to our Smart Labs, the two groups who partnered to provide our workshop are the Kid Wind Project and Pattern Energy of the wind farms north of Clovis.

Kid Wind provides educational outreach to teachers and students with a wide range of resources to promote knowledge and experience with wind energy as a sustainable resource.

Pattern Energy is an independent renewable energy company with locations and projects not only across the country, but also in other countries.

Our CHS Smart Lab hosted this unique educator workshop conducted by Kid Wind and Pattern Energy, providing the educator attendees with some amazing knowledge, engaging projects, and just plain fun activities to share, subsequently, with students of all ages.

We were fortunate to be joined by educators from other school districts, including: Grady, Texico, Melrose, Tucumcari, and Corona. It was truly edifying to break into small groups with other educators you’ve met for the first time, jumping into hands-on projects with names like, “The MacGyver Windmill;” a perfect opportunity for educators to dive into an innovative learning activity from the perspective of a student, experiencing what our students do.

A spectacular highlight of the day was the field trip to one of the wind turbines near Broadview to get a close-up view of these massive structures. Sporting our hard hats, safety glasses and fluorescent safety vests, we got to peek inside to see how things work and even got to visit a bare-bones excavated construction site as well as a turbine partially completed.

Perhaps most memorable about the day was the delight in learning and laughing with new friends.

Cindy Kleyn-Kennedy is the instructional technology coordinator for the Clovis Municipal Schools. She can be reached at

[email protected]