Paul Ciampoli
Welcome to the latest episode of Public Power Now.
I'm Paul Ciampoli, APPA's News Director.
Our guests on this episode are Ashley Day, Education and Visitor Program Specialist at Holland Board of Public Works, and Dave Koster, General Manager at the utility.
They're here to discuss the Michigan public power utility’s outreach to local schools and the ways in which Holland BPW works to educate students about the utility and the broader energy industry, as well as careers in the utility sector.
Ashley and Dave, thanks for joining us.
So just to get our conversation started, I wanted to give you the opportunity to talk about how community stakeholder engagement in the development of Holland Energy Park led to the emphasis to create a destination for the public, including the visitor center at the power plant.
Dave Koster
Holland Energy Park is a natural gas combined cycle power plant that was developed, constructed, and commissioned between 2012 and 2017.
What made this project so special was the collaboration and input of key community stakeholders through every step of the process.
We pulled together representatives from business, government, special interest groups, and education to solve a problem of what to do to meet our community's future power supply needs.
We answered this question by evaluating not only the financial impacts of the resource options in front of us, but also the social, economic, and environmental impacts that derive from these choices.
The process really helped align the community on the decision to let an old coal plant retire and replace it with a new environmentally and energy-efficient resource.
We found this process of stakeholder engagement to be so successful that we continued it as we looked to design the site plan and architectural elements of the plant.
Pulling together stakeholders again, we first started with words that helped define what impact this plant should have for the community.
Those three words start with resource.
First and foremost, this plant needs to be a world-class resource to meet our community's growing needs for electricity.
Gateway is the second word, as this plant sits on the eastern entrance to our community.
It needed to be designed to be complementary to the other structures in the area and to make a visual connection to those that experience it as they pass by, so we made intentional choices to incorporate large glass front areas that allow the community members to see into the process at different vantage points.
Finally, as a community-owned resource, the last word is destination.
We want it to be and are an educational resource and place for our community so that they can enjoy the plant both outside the secure perimeter in a park-like setting that includes sustainable native vegetation and stormwater management features, and inside the plant where we created a visitor center to help educate on energy topics in the home, community, and technology utilized in the plant.
Ashley Day
Yeah, and I can add to that.
Not only does the community show support for our education efforts, but we also have a lot of support from all levels inside the organization as well, including from our executive team, superintendents, managers, and operators.
Our field crews at our facilities and in the field are absolutely amazing and so gracious when we bring student groups in.
Field trips are happening and they aren't just tolerating it, they're welcoming it, and sometimes they join in and give their perspective on whatever it is that we're talking about.
I hear from a lot of our staff, I was that kid who would have loved this field trip, so they really do understand this is our future workforce.
And education has become such a part of our company culture and that success really comes from the top down.
So I'm really grateful for the support we get from operations and the entire BPW team in addition to our community.
Paul Ciampoli
And so in Holland, there's an increasing focus on schools partnering with businesses to create nature-based hands-on learning experiences.
So against that backdrop, how is the utility working to support that effort by leveraging its facilities to create those environments?
Dave Koster
Recently these partnerships are starting to emerge in the Holland area, and they're bringing students out of the classroom setting and into the natural environments, trying to reinforce curriculum goals through project-based or nature-based learning.
Some of the early results from this have actually shown that kids in these environments have improved test scores, and it also works to reduce classroom disruptions, so it's very successful so far, and businesses are getting on board with it.
This work is really being led by a local not-for-profit entity that focuses on environmental sustainability work and education, along with our community's chamber of commerce.
And it's all being done in coordination with the area's intermediate school district.
So companies in our region are finding that they actually have learning labs within their business environments that can be great locations for students to experience alternatives to in-classroom learning.
And so when we look at the Holland BPW's facilities for water, wastewater treatment, as well as electric generation, these sites make for excellent locations to support the efforts of our local schools.
And Ashley has done an amazing job building relationships with educators and developing and executing on a strategic plan for improvements to our facilities to accommodate their increased utilization as a place for learning.
Paul Ciampoli
Ashley, did you have anything you wanted to add?
Ashley Day
Project-based learning is so big right now in the city of Holland and a lot of teachers are really focusing on that because it is so student driven. The students get to do a lot of the work. The teacher is really just there to be a guide.
So being able to utilize facilities like Holland BPW's facilities is a great opportunity for our local students.
Paul Ciampoli
Holland BPW offers tours and field trips free of charge of not only its power plant, the Holland Energy Park, but also its drinking water plant and water reclamation facility.
So two questions for you as it relates to that.
One, can you offer additional details on these tours and field trips?
And what are the specific activities that students engage in during these tours and field trips?
Ashley Day
We've developed field trips and run tours for all ages at our facilities, pre-K through 12th grade, and then, upwards of college aged students as well.
Those field trips are designed to support the state's curriculum and NGS standards, but we also identified specific intellectual and emotional outcomes that we hope students come away with when they visit any of our facilities.
So when students visit Holland Energy Park, for example, we hope that they've learned about technology, careers, how the power plant works, but we also want them to leave with a sense of wanting to learn more or a sense of wonder or thinking, that was really cool.
I always really enjoy it when students have positive things like that to say as they're walking out the door.
But identifying those outcomes really helped to structure our field trips so they're consistent across the facilities and it gives us a clear direction too.
My goal is to provide what I call edutainment, which is something educational, but also entertaining. It's that Bill Nye style of science.
Students consistently give feedback that they learn best when they're doing something, especially when it's physical with their hands and that they don't have a lot of constraints with, so there's no yes or no.
It's just an engineering design process where you do something, test it, retest it and try again.
So regardless of what field trip or facility you're at, all of our field trips start with an introduction to our facilities, the BPW, and what we do in the community.
Then we move on to the main part of their visit, which might be a tour, game, or other hands-on activity.
Those activities range from different topics that teachers request and can be scaffolded up or down, depending on the grade level.
Typically, something hands-on or something that gets the kids up and moving.
Our most popular activity at Holland Energy Park is the Goose Chase scavenger hunt in our visitor center.
Goose Chase is a web-based scavenger hunt app, and to complete the scavenger hunt, students are given a tablet with the app loaded on it.
They're split into teams and have to use information they find in the visitor center to answer questions called missions.
The more missions they complete, the more points they get and typically teams with the most points get to take a prize from our prize table, which is filled with a bunch of really cool BPW swag. So they're always really excited about that.
It's very self-guided, so students need very little supervision, even the elementary age students, and they're free to explore on their own and at their own pace.
Another really great activity that we've gotten recently for Holland Energy Park introduces circuits using conductive Play-Doh. It's called squishy circuits.
The students get to shape the dough, use battery packs, LEDs, and they make different kinds of circuits and experiment with concepts like polarity, conductors, and insulators.
Dave Koster
I'd also add that right now we have an exciting time at our water treatment plant because we're doing a project to pull some of the chemical storage out of our third floor and move it adjacent to the plant and by doing that, it's actually freeing up space on that third floor.
And so we're reimagining what kind of uses could happen there and sort of creating an opportunity for both plant staff to use it for meeting space but also integrating some educational components to that as well.
So just like we did at Holland Energy Park a few years back, we're sort of creating this design process now to really enhance and enforce some of the concepts that we want to impart to students as they visit our water treatment plant too, so we're really excited about that.
Paul Ciampoli
One thought occurred to me just now.
I mean, it strikes me as this is also a way in which students, when they go back home and talk to their parents about this experience, they're almost in effect ambassadors, for what the utility does and all the exciting experiences that you guys offer.
Dave Koster
Absolutely. One of the things that we really hope to have happen here is that not only are we connecting with students for their own learning, but there are things that are very important to the utility from an initiative standpoint.
So we think about things like water demand management, we think about energy efficiency, these concepts are probably more being controlled by the parents than they are by the students.
But if the students can bring those concepts home and help sort of, like you said, be an ambassador to their entire family, then some of those practices start being put into place, and then they become part of the overall community solution that we're hoping to have and working with in concert with, again, our broader community to achieve goals.
Paul Ciampoli
Holland BPW's programming related to engaging with schools and students provides flexibility in that activities can be done on site at a utility facility or in the classroom.
So how does this flexibility benefit the utility as well as area schools and students?
Ashley Day
The programming is designed to be flexible.
I mean, when you're working with 50 second graders, it's kind of impossible not to be flexible, honestly.
So the programming that we have done in classrooms or in our facilities…we've done programming at the beach across from our water treatment plant, at area parks, and we'll also be doing some community programs at our local library this summer as well.
So for schools, having the BPW visit classrooms saves on transportation costs and having to coordinate transportation, which takes up a lot of planning by teachers. So any time we can save some hassle for teachers, that's always great.
We're also able to do back-to-back programming in classes. So we'll have one teacher, students do a program, and then other teachers come in and do the same program. This gives us more time and lets us engage with even more students.
And offering flexible programming is really about meeting the needs of the school.
If they can only focus on classroom learning and field trips aren't an option, then we're able to fill that gap and bring the field trip to them.
So having more time with students in the classroom is a huge benefit for us because we get more time to teach students about the importance of utilities and really energize and dive in deep for the next generation of the workforce.
Paul Ciampoli
Dave, did you want to add anything?
Dave Koster
When we look at all the schools in our area, I think, Ashley, correct me if I'm wrong, but we had about, was it 2,800, I think, students. Yeah, about 2,800 students that came through our facility over the last year, over a school year, basically.
And so, to have that ability to create a touch point for educating on careers in the utility space, as Ashley was mentioning, this is a tremendous opportunity for us as a utility to educate on the career opportunities and the pathways that students can take to find their ways into those careers.
And so it's just been a win-win situation where we're getting education out, getting things that, really, again, they can be ambassadors to their homes and to their families, rather.
And then at the same time, we're getting the benefit of marketing, essentially, the careers in our utility to a number of students that there'd be no other way that we could make that kind of connection, so there's tremendous benefit that comes from leaning into this kind of role with the community.
Paul Ciampoli
So Dave, your touching upon careers is a great segue to my last question, which is against the backdrop of the utility's largest outside school time partnership on being with Careerline Tech Center. So I wanted to give you guys the opportunity to talk more about this partnership.
Ashley Day
The Careerline Tech Center is a career and technical school in our area.
During the school year, students within the district can choose from a variety of programs to get more technical knowledge on, like plumbing, mechatronics, environmental field science. There's a teacher's academy. So there's lots of different school year programs that they have.
But in the summertime, they run a special program called FuturePrep’d, which is a career-focused program for students of all ages, elementary through high school.
So those students, they sign up if they're interested, and they get assigned a teacher and a business partner to work with.
And for one to two weeks, they are working on a real-world business problem that's given to them by the business.
And they work to solve that problem and offer a solution and they present to our executive team what their solution is.
So the FuturePrep’d program is great because we not only get to introduce our utility to students, but we hopefully get to encourage that future workforce.
Dave Koster
And actually some of the solutions that they've come up with have been really cool and frankly, we've been able to implement parts of those as well.
So again, I think giving them that feedback that what they came up with actually has a real world implementation is satisfying for them too and it helps build that connection between us and those students, so we really enjoy that program and have gotten a lot out of it.
Paul Ciampoli
Dave and Ashley, thanks again so much for taking the time to speak with us.
And I just wanted to mention to our listeners that on Holland BPW’s web page on the main page, there's additional details about field trips, group tours, and education and visitor programs.
Dave Koster
Yeah, I'd encourage people a couple things that they should maybe look too. You could look too our main page, hollandbpw.com.
Down in the bottom of the area, there's a spot on careers as well where we created a careers brochure that actually is very informative I think other utilities could look at too.
That helps define within the clusters of careers that are out there, helping define what aligns with kids' interests, what kind of positions they might want to pursue.
But also Holland Energy Park, HollandEnergyPark.com is a website that details the energy park, the visitor center, and a lot of the history of the stakeholder engagement.
So there's a couple of resources that people could look to.
Paul Ciampoli
Well, Ashley and Dave, thanks again so much for taking time to speak with us.
Dave Koster
Thank you very much for having us. We really enjoyed it.
Ashley Day
Yeah, thank you so much.
Paul Ciampoli
Thanks for listening to this episode of Public Power Now, which is produced by Julio Guerrero, Graphic and Digital Designer at APPA.
I'm Paul Ciampoli and we'll be back with more from the world of public power next week.
