Ponaganset High School teacher Ross "Mad Dog" McCurdy must have the coolest science class ever. He has taught students about fuel cells for four years and the class project is turning a replica of the 1923 Model T into a fuel cell vehicle. The car is already converted to run on batteries.

There are not a lot of fuel cell cars out there and they say this one will be the first for the state. They have brought the car to the state house. They plan on bringing it to Washington, DC along with a message of clean energy and great things like that. They are still looking for sponsors. Good luck to the team.

[Source: Projo.com]

One of the rights of passage for American high school students is getting their driver's license and getting a car. That's where the trouble starts. I'm not even going to get into the wisdom or utter lack thereof of letting kids start driving at 14 years and 9 months. When kids get a car they need to put gas into it and at $3.50 a gallon that gets old fast.

Four students from Churchill High School in Livonia, MI created a public service announcement video for a class denouncing big gas-guzzlers like the Cadillac Escalade. The original version only got a C in class but after reworking it, their teacher entered the spot in the 2007 Michigan Student Film & Video Festival where it got one of 32 best in show awards out of the 284 entries. It's good to see that not every kid wants to run around in a big SUV.

[Source: Livonia Observer]

Rieth Village is where green car drivers would like to live. But, since it’s just a collection of three buildings that will be used as classrooms and experimental green lifestyle at this point, we’ll have to wait. The village is part of the Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center of Goshen College. Students from the college will live in the village while taking classes in ornithology or ecology. The South Bend Tribune had a feature article on the village this week.

The goal is for the buildings to be awarded the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design’s “platinum” rating, the highest possible.
The buildings are eco-consciously designed; from the way they’re oriented to the type of materials used to build them. The roads are packed gravel instead of concrete, which is permeable and causes less erosion than asphalt. There are also a wind turbine and solar panels to generate power. I’m impressed by the rainwater catch pools and how that water will be used for things that don’t need potable water (like flushing toilets). Rieth Village is a planned community and a learning center, but it’s the type of environmentally conscious “town” that can really be a model for the future.

[Source: South Bend Tribune]