Monthly Archives: July 2015

Week #5’ish- Kenan Fellows PD and back at the Co-op!

This week was the second of three professional development institute that was held by Kenan Fellows Program. I spent Thursday in the field with Monica and Dale seeing all of the steps involved in staking new services. There was a board meeting that afternoon and I had the opportunity to share my experiences and academic plan with the Board of Directors for EM-EMC.

Telling the board a little bit about my summer…

Oh no– are we really going to talk POLITICS?!

In the first part of the week during our professional development, my fellow fellows and I spent some time learning about the importance of making connections with the folks that make the most important decisions– our lawmakers. Many teachers join organizations like NCAE and PENC for their lobbying power. While there isn’t anything wrong with joining those organizations (most of them have quite a few ‘perks’ like professional insurance-very valuable!), we learned that teachers and leaders are most effective in the political arena when we create and nurture relationships with our local representatives. This can be a daunting task, and time consuming, but is worth doing in order to be an advocate for our students and our profession. These relationships can be forged outside of any association with a professional organization by a little bit of planning and some homework before meeting any representatives. My takeaway from this: Sticking my head in the sand and ignoring politics does absolutely nothing for my profession. I must begin taking baby steps to become an activist for current and future teachers and students. This may be one of the most important responsibilities I have as a teacher leader. I plan on inviting my representatives to my classroom this year, stay tuned for details on that!

Whew, back in my comfort zone- SCIENCE!

We spent time Tuesday morning with staff from the NC Science Museum learning about and practicing citizen science. We also scored some AMAZING new field guides for birds (Sibley) bugs (Kaufman), and trees.

We also used some apps for our citizen science project that centered around Lake Raleigh. The fun and cool thing about citizen science is that can be done ANYWHERE, by ANYONE. It doesn’t take a lot of time, and the impact is huge as more people become interested in and engage with citizen science. Below are the apps we used:

eBird is used for sharing information about bird sightings

iNaturalist and Natures Notebook are both more general sites for sharing citizen science observations. Natures Notebook is great for sharing phenology information for flora and fauna right in your backyard– citizen science from home!

Plover approved.

Almost the end…

It was wonderful to be reunited with my Kenan family. We were able to share information and receive feedback on our curriculum products, reconnect and hear ALL ABOUT each others fellowships, and enjoy being in the company of like-minded professionals. SO REFRESHING. I have one more week– 5 days– left of internship. It is so hard to believe it is almost over. It has been a whirl-wind summer and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Again, thank you to KFP, NCEMC, EMEMC for supporting my work this summer. It has been transformative, informative, and simply amazing! Also thanks to my family– my husband and children, my parents, and my in-laws who have been so generous in their assistance with my children. I couldn’t have done any of this without them!

QVC Visit

On Thursday, June 18 i visited the QVC facility in Rocky Mount, NC. I was absolutely blown away by the facilities at QVC. The technology that goes into receiving, storing, and processing material is unfathomable for anyone who hasn’t see it first hand. QVC was a planned part of my Kenan experience because they are industrial members of Edgecombe-Martin Electric Membership Cooperative. They are a unique facility in terms of electricity production and consumption because they have a larg solar farm on-site that provides 5.8 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year that is put back on the grid and purchased by North Carolina Electric Membership Cooperative. Read my post about solar energy here.

Packages are sorted into bins according to destination

Since QVC’s equipment, methods, and materials are essentially ‘trade secret’, I couldn’t take any pictures of the inside. But I can summarize the steps, from bulk order in to individual order out:

1. A truck brings pallets of product to the facility. It is unloaded, sorted, and then stored in a specific location.

2. Once an order is placed for an item, the item is pulled from storage and sent to packaging. Keep this in mind the next time you order multiple types of items from any store– the items are likely stored in various storage areas, but somehow they all make into the same box. AMAZING!

3. The items are packaged. This may seem like a small detail, but you want that TV to receive in working order, right? How about the pearl bracelet you ordered? That should be handled carefully too, right? While they probably would not package a TV and pearl bracelet together, they combine as much as they can in order to keep consumer shipping costs down.

4. Once your order is packaged, it is sent on a conveyor belt where it is scanned and sorted according to region of destination, and then loaded onto a truck that will be used to transport your item to USPS or UPS or FedEx.

Its important to note that this process is heavily automated, it requires many people to monitor, package, transport via forklifts, and troubleshoot the system. It was very interesting to see how all of the machines worked together to deliver a fast and timely produce. Every hour costs the company lots of money– the higher the productivity, the higher the costs.

As I toured the facility I couldn’t help but compare the business world to the education world. In a sense, education is a business– however too often inefficiency is rampant and the result ends up being a product (student) that is not ready for what lies ahead. I know there are many great schools doing many great things, and they should be the model we look to for insight and guidance. What kind of product are we sending out to the world? What would our ‘bottom line’ actually be if we could attach numbers to productivity, creativity, and efficiency?

Week #4- Line Crew, Accounting, and Cameras- OH MY!

This week has been a mixture of field time, office time, and HOLLYWOOD time!
Monday we were out with the crew and we were at the hog farm–they were running new lines to have more houses. It was a stinky, but informative, experience. I was able to see the linemen pull line and hang line to prepare it for service.

We didn’t actually SEE any hogs, but we smelled them, and they didn’t smell as cute as this one looks.

Here are some highlights from my time in the field Monday:

Before any job is started there is ‘tail gate meeting’ that ensures everyone on the crew knows exactly what will be happening– which lines will be ‘hot’ and appropriate safety reminders for the specific job at hand. Everyone on the job site has to sign or initial the work order acknowledging they are aware of the plan and potential dangers.

At the hog farm there were new lines hung up. This required line to be pulled off of the spool and put on the ground, before they were hung at one end and pulled up and attached at the other end. It is a lengthy process– but one that went fairly quick once it started happening.

Working ‘in the field’. Literally. In the corn field!

Safety first– When the crews are working on ‘hot’ lines there is extensive safety measures taken to ensure the line men go home to their families each night. Here they have line insulators, rubber sleeves, and multiple layers of protection that AREN’T pictured here– including a grounded line and their harnesses are attached to the bucket.

Tuesday we were back in the office. Monica and I reviewed the Volunteer Action Committee minutes from the last meeting and she prepared for the next meeting that will be the last week of the month. I also spent some time working on curriculum and polishing up the ‘ol blog.

Wednesday …. oh Wednesday. Lindsey from NCEMC (‘statewide’) came with a camera crew from Amazing Studios and they were… well…. amazing. We were filmed while we were out with the crew, and even though I was a tad uncomfortable with the cameras that close and constantly on me, I know that the video they create from the footage the shot will be great. We actually did stuff while out with the linemen- I became and expert outrigger putter-downer and picker-upper (those are technical terms, by the way) and we watched the linemen (Allen and Bobby) switch service from one phase to a different phase. We were also interviewed by the guys at Amazing Studios and got a glimpse into the challenges of outdoor shooting (noise/heat/bugs/lack of power).

Thursday we were back in the office for awhile in the morning– I talked to Gary and Thomas about outages and metering. I never knew there were so many different types of meters!

Monica and I also went to an event hosted by the Edgecombe County Library where local children came out to see trucks including firetrucks, police cars, bucket trucks, and even a Pepsi Truck.

Thursday afternoon I spent time in accounting– this department was friendly and welcoming just like the other departments and I learned more than I ever even knew existed in the world of business– from accounts payable to taxes to payroll– the amount of number crunching that goes on is unreal. I’ll be updating with a link to a post about capital credits and some of the other business benefits of co-ops in the next week or so– I learned enough for a whole post on that!

Friday we were visited by Tia and Amneris from Kenan Fellows Project. I am so happy that they had the opportunity to see some really cool stuff out in the field. The crew we were with had to ‘retire’ two poles and set two new poles. One line was hot while the other was not, so it was interesting to see the different approach for different scenarios. Today I was able to nail the copper ground onto a wire, help fill the hole, help with pole attachments, and turn the pole once it was set in the ground. So again, picture heavy below, but if you have questions please feel free to ask 🙂

A shady spot for the tailgate meeting

“So you’ll nail these funny shaped nails into the pole…”

A pole turner tool! The holes in the pole have to line up just right to make all of the connections properly.

I became an expert at nailing, so they let me supervise.

It has been another GREAT week at Edgecombe-Martin EMC. I am so thankful for the hospitality that has been shown. I will be working diligently in the next few weeks to bring together the lessons I’ve learned and create curriculum that will be able to be shared with other teachers that will hopefully inspire our young people to pursue careers in the energy industry. This will benefit teachers by providing engaging, exciting, and relevant lessons. Edgecombe-Martin EMC will benefit from having a member base that is exposed at a younger age to cooperative principles and energy education.

Week #3… Line Crew!

This week we spent a lot of time ‘on the road’ with the line crew. These guys were SUPER nice and welcoming. They answered all of my questions and told me exactly what they were doing and why they were doing it. This post will be ‘picture heavy’, because I took LOTS of pictures! On Tuesday I was able to attend a safety committee meeting and we were in the office. Also on Tuesday I learned more about solar energy and renewables. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday I was able to see the linemen doing a variety of tasks that included:

~investigating reports of blinking lights to find and fix the issue (birds pecking at the wire– this didn’t work out well for the birds!)

~Installing a security light and service to meter box at a new residence

~retiring a pole

~repairing an underground line that had blown out

~installing new lines and setting a new pole for service

~they even let me use a ditch digger to fill a hole!

Keep both eyes open

One of the ‘big questions’ that seem to be resurfacing A LOT lately is : “what exactly are the goals of the project and how will this be used in the classroom?”

A little adjustment goes a long way… it also helps to keep both eyes open!

The picture above describes perfectly the result of some initiatives and professional development that I’ve participated in. My KFP experience has been the opposite– it is becoming more and more clear what educators need to do to send out students who are ready to positively contribute to society. The ultimate goal of any professional development is to equip the teacher to make a bigger impact on the student. The experiences I’ve had, the content I’ve learned, and the relationships I’ve made throughout my time with Kenan Fellows will mean that I return to my classroom renewed and ready to get to work with a fresh new set of ‘tools’ in my tool kit. I’ll also have new relationships with like-minded people– new friends that I can collaborate with and share ideas, strategies, and successes with. Here are just a few of my take-aways that will imeediately impact my lesson planning and teaching in my classroom:

1. Technology has a time and place. Digitizing an assignment or lesson for the sake of digitizing it isn’t always best. Yes, conservation of paper resources is important. Yes, students respond to use of technology in the classroom, but sometimes….

2. Let the students talk. I’ll be taking up phones a lot more in my class this semester. The Snap Chat, Instagram and Facebook are all valuable tools that students use to communicate, but the most valuable tool is their mouth and ears. It’s time to look at some basics of communication to ensure that our students can be effective communicators outside of the technology that they are so tied to. At the same time, I’m working to…

3. Meet them where they are. While I’ll be looking at getting back to basics in some aspects of my classroom, I’ll also be looking to gamify my classroom for the first time. This is huge for me, because I’m not much of a ‘gamer’.

No really, this is the extent of my ‘gaming’…

So I’ll start small in the fall and work on making my classroom more gamified. I am excited about this because I think it will really engage some students who are otherwise not all about school work. I’ll also work on using more tools that my students use in order to connect with them– I plan on having a class Instagram account and using resources like Goose Chase more often with my students. And even though it’s all fun and games, I want students to learn even more about…

4. Real Life. You know, that when they graduate high school they will go to college or get a job or join the military. Internship specific stuff like–

a. Careers. There is more to do out there than being a doctor, lawyer, teacher, nurse, or cosmetologist. All of those are important and noble choices, but lets face it– there is SO MUCH MORE out there.

b. Electric Utilities. It’s important for students to understand the way these services work– how you sign up, why your bill is higher during some months (and how to make it lower), why the power goes out in a storm (and what to do when it does go out),

There’s more to it than that…

And finally, last but not least…

c. The science behind electricity and electrical services. Beyond the flow of electrons, there is so much to consider. From how lines are run (the amount the ‘sag’ in the middle is a big deal and has a complicated formula for determining how much the linemen sag the lines based on air temp when installing the lines to determine how much additional sag they will develop as they settle) to line size and composition, to transmission and transformers to distribution and consumption– there is SO MUCH to consider when thinking about how electricity is supplied.

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