YES helping youths go green

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LAKEFIELD — Youth Energy Summit (YES), a new program funded in part by the Minnesota Renewable Energy Marketplace, is designed to empower area students to create energy and conservation projects in their communities.

“The whole underlying premise of this program, especially now, as we have a grant through the Department of Labor… (is) to show kids the types of career opportunities that are available to them, so when they’re done with high school and go on to college, they can be trained and come back here to southwest Minnesota and have well-paying jobs,” said Chrystal Dunker, executive director of the Prairie Ecology Bus.

So far, four southwest Minnesota schools have signed up to participate in the program, in which eighth- through 12th-graders compete to design and implement energy conservation and renewable energy projects in their communities — Westbrook-Walnut Grove, Redwood Falls Area, Marshall and Springfield.

Other local schools have expressed interest in the competition, but have not yet found adult coaches to help guide students through their projects, Dunker said.

Schools that have expressed interest in YES include District 518, Southwest Star Concept, Jackson County Central, Mountain Lake, Windom, Luverne and Murray County Central.

Coaches are given a stipend to help defray costs, but the job is considered mostly a volunteer position. Volunteers can team-coach in pairs or groups and are not required to be high school teachers.

“They can be interested community people passionate about energy conservation,” Dunker said. “You don’t have to have a background in that field to help a team create a project. It’s kind of a learning experience for everybody.”

Teams of students choose their own projects and YES coordinator Michael Swenson of Storden will work with teams and coaches in southern Minnesota.

At the end of the year, students will gather and present their projects in a competition for nearly $10,000 in prize money.

YES is administered by the Southwest Initiative Foundation and implemented through partnerships with the Prairie Ecology Bus Center and the Prairie Woods Environmental Learning Center, Spicer. It began as a partnership between Prairie Woods and the Southwest Initiative Foundation about two years ago.

For more information or to volunteer for YES, contact Swenson at mike@ecologybus.org or call (320) 583-4775.

Tags: renewable energy, prairie ecology bus, news, education, yes, energy, pebc