Get Charged!
Beltrami Electric is making it easier for area schools to teach about electricity and electric cooperatives. Through a partnership between Touchstone Energy Cooperatives and Discovery Channel School, the co-op embarked on a campaign to ensure that middle and junior high school students throughout its service area receive a quality education on electricity - from its beginnings to its importance in today's world. By streamlining the vast amounts of information on electricity and the important role cooperatives played in bringing this commodity to rural America, students are able to easily digest the lesson plans in this educational campaign.
Through this community outreach program - called Get Charged! Electricity and You - Beltrami Electric provides middle and junior high schools with a comprehensive kit of educational materials focusing on electricity, a component of the National Academy of Science's National Science Education Standards (NSES). While individual states differ in their implementation and assessment of standards, they often base those for science topics on the NSES. Developed by teachers, scientists, science educators and other experts, the standards for grades K-12 describe what students should understand and be able to do in various science categories.
Each Get Charged! kit contains the following educational materials:
- Poster for classroom use
- Two Videos: Understanding Electricity and Touchstone Energy's Our Story
- Interactive CD-ROM featuring electricity
- Lesson Plan: Get Power - The Cooperative Way
- 10 Student Activity Books
- Electricity Teachers Resource Guide
- Customizable letter to parents and schools explaining the educational program