How to give more opportunities to children?
In a small town, there are not many activities where children can get involved into – at least, those with whom we talked about are not aware of any. Most often, they learn of opportunities directly from their high school and it seems to be the easiest way to do so. They rely on school to receive interesting projects - as it was, in the past, a volunteer day in the context of Let's Do It, Romania! or the “Play Energy” contest, about which they learned from their geography teacher, who also set up the foundations of an ecotourism club in the school.
The school struggles, along with the parents, to prepare the students not only for exams, but also for hobbies and experiments. But the opportunities for team work based on a project, such as the “Play Energy” competition was, are still sparse. What can contribute to the change?
“This project is a multidisciplinary construction - it needed more information and skills acquired for various educational topics. Linking life to practice is an idea that appears more and more often in our designs. And it happened not by aligning the stars, but by aligning the institutions, which created the appropriate context. Perhaps in the future, some of these children who go to competitions, will come up with solutions to the increasingly ardent issues of the contemporary age, some will come to work in such companies that need open-minded people who think ahead, proactive people”
This openness to partnerships is part of Open Power philosophy of Enel companies. Without the support of the Ministry of National Education, which included “Play Energy” in the National School Contest Calendar, we could not have invited students from all over the country to participate with their creative energy in our game. We are grateful to general and county inspectors involved in several stages of the competition, including judging, and to region coordinators, because they keep in touch with teachers, disseminate information about the contest, and clarify the enrollment process. Through these collaborations, we have been able to involve 190 schools across the country and around 1500 students, who have submitted over 300 projects in the 5 energy innovation areas chosen as themes for this year's competition - E-home, E-mobility, E-city, E-power, E-world. By an unusual method, children have learned a lot about energy.
The project - another homework type
For adults, the word “project” has lost its spark, because we use it all the time at work. But for kids it's an exciting game because it trains skills that traditional school does not usually take into account - teamwork, division of roles, step-by-step work and coordination, responsibility for the outcome, failure and new try, verification. Not only do they do what they learn in school, but they even create something original, only through their work, motivated by the novelty of the process and the coordinator. The project is an opportunity for children to learn that they can do something special and to gain self-confidence. Could a brine battery work? Um, let's see, where should we start? These are times when kids dream of what they can do in the future, so let’s encourage them in their attempts!
“There are two projects that are born of a very elastic mind - never lose this essence of youth, because you will need it all your life.” – Claudio Curti, Manager, E-Distributie Dobrogea
What is the teacher's mission?
We don’t have this answer! But we can tell you that Daniel Anghel, the geography teacher who coordinated the two teams, tried throughout the awarding event to focus the public's attention to the children, to highlight them. Since joining the school, he has inspired them to get involved in extracurricular activities - taking them hiking, telling them about contests, motivating them up when they get stuck, giving feedback on what they've done, and generally showing he cares.
His strategy is to establish student groups that work well together and to involve them in other competitions in the future. Maybe they will lose, maybe they will win, it's important to get involved, not to let opportunities pass by them. The openness of the teaching staff, globally, is also important, as well as the students' example, as in the case of Sorana, a chemistry olympiad winner, interested in new activities from which to gain more knowledge. The local community - does it also play a role? “To gather people around children”, this is what he wants.
“As a geography teacher, I hesitated to participate in “Play Energy”. But this is an interdisciplinary contest, energy also means some geography related applications. Eventually I accepted the challenge and presented this contest to several classes - they understood immediately and came up with some sensational ideas. My role was to make them believe in these ideas, to coordinate them a little bit in their approach and, above all, to make them as natural, as visible as possible, to be themselves in the project. This is a special group of students, very well trained in many areas, and each one has had a precise role within the teams, it was easy for me to organize them. I have given them maximum confidence, always trying to get them to use these extraordinary ideas. We had some hesitation – after all, these ideas are close to science-fiction - how do we prove they are applicable? I tried to convince them that this was how all the great ideas started – at first they were considered SF. After all, that's the job of a teacher - to bring the spark into children’s eyes and that's what I intended to do.” – Daniel Anghel, coordinating teacher
Award-winning projects at Oltenita - what is the innovation?
The reaction of the specialist? “They had a good intuition - the problem of clean energy is its storage, in order to be used when production is small, because there’s not wind or sun. Current technology is not so developed as to be widespread, so there is a need for a technology of the future that is also useful for electric mobility.” – Claudio Curti, Manager, E-Distributie Dobrogea
The idea of the battery belongs to Sorana, a chemistry olympiad winner, who would like the prize awarded to the high school to fund the provision of physics and chemistry laboratories. As we learned from Tibi, the most difficult thing for the team was to get the batteries to work - they really wanted them to work, so they persevered. Other challenges were video editing for the presentation of the project, which Vlad had tenaciously re-did as many times as needed, and laughter when filming, at least for Emilia.
“Two Times Electrical” team: Ștefan Gabriel Bobeică, Ștefan Barbu, Teodor Alexandru Dicu, Andrei Tiberiu Mihăilă, Vlad Andrei Dumitrescu
The reaction of the specialist? “To produce more energy using rainwater – this is something I would not have thought of, an original idea.” – Claudio Curti, Manager, E-Distributie Dobrogea
The concept of a pluvial mini-hydroelectric power plant belonged to Vlad, then followed the teamwork. He and Tibi dealt with video editing and animations for this project as well. Bobeica had the role of improving the solar panel, a difficult job - “I did not know how to improve it, especially since I did not see what was wrong with it.” Fane's role was to learn a new programming language – it was an opportunity to get out of his comfort zone. Teodor used his talent to present the idea – “It was such a good luck to be all in the same team, because everybody has its own special skils and we won the contest by cumulating these skills.”
Incursion into the world of little innovators
We talked to Emilia, Bobeica, Tibi, Vlad and Fane - all of them are colleagues in the math-info, intensive English class. Tibi and Vlad were part of both teams, because the first one worked on the animations (together with Bobeica) and the second one on editing, so that the presentation videos were nothing inferior to the ideas.
For “Play Energy” they worked a lot, after classes, in the classroom, in the chemistry lab or even at home, despite their many homework and tests for school. They were tempted to give up, especially since some parts of the project were not successful from the start - for example, the animation with the panel, for which Bobeica has sweated hard - “There’s too much rain, take out the rain; put the sun, there’s too much sun, cut some of the sun; put a bird in the frame.”
The work flow did not resemble that of the projects they have done in the past – in computer science, Romanian plays, or entrepreneurial projects, where they had fun selling juice and cakes. There have been attempts in school for group activities on different topics, but they have not had continuity. An interesting activity for them was the exchange of experience with young people from other countries. During “Școala Altfel” program, they get visits from “people in this Oltenita society, who come to tell us about their job”. There are also opportunities to get involved in volunteering actions, such as waste collection for greening, in which Emilia had participated. Fane worked as volunteer at Untold and Neversea, from where he returned with many memories – he is glad he met many people, attended concerts and was “in the middle of the action”. How did the parents accept it? “It was OK from the beginning, they know me very well and know that I am responsible.”
They do not know of any events dedicated to their age, but in town take place, for example, cyclist meetings, and, last summer, someone even organized a water fight – it seems you need to know who to follow on Facebook to find out what and where it happens! What else can cool kids do in town? They go cycling along the track, then on the road, honked by trucks, they play soccer, parkour (although, as Vlad says, it's kind of old school now, more popular in primary school!), go skateboarding – in the summer there are about 50 of them around the town hall. “Generally, in Oltenita there are children who want to do everything – we do crazy things sometimes, but also good things.” For example, driving school: good luck, Tibi!
They also play on the computer: fantasy games of role playing, soccer or shooter games. What does that bring them? Fun, but also exasperation. Bobeica gets angry when playing and when he talks about politics, a topic that only interests him – “I try not to listen to him” says Tibi. Bobeica follows several “objective” pages of news, even if what he finds out annoys him – “well, I want to know the world I live in!”
What else are they doing on internet? They follow Reddit or YouTube where they watch local and international vloggers, discover new music or learn interesting things from tutorials - 3D origami and other handy stuff – Emilia would like to use her phone less. Among the vloggers, Fane follows Cristian Dascălu, a former New York programmer, who is trying to change mentalities, for example the meaning of the word “trick”, to apply it to the facts that deserve appreciation. “It is so cool that we have won the Play Energy contest.” Bobeica remembers watching Selly in the beginning, when no one knew him, something he is no longer doing, because he has grown up. We find out that George Buhnici is among those who he's following now – “Have you heard of #casabuhnici? In winter, when outside is a bit of sunshine, he already has the courtyard alleys cleared of snow, using solar energy.” Today's children!
They are in the 11th grade and think about college. And they think and think again, and think a little more. Fane already has an obsession with United Kingdom, because he has older friends who are already studying there – he hopes to find new horizons there, has already seen the syllabus and is delighted to learn about artificial intelligence from the first year.
Emilia cut from her list all the faculties that did not appeal to her. At this time, she thinks of a career as an engineer, because of her father’s influence, a man who taught her a lot of interesting and practical things, for example, that “outside light is a complicated and extraordinary process that we should appreciate more”.
Play Energy Dimension
Every child has a story that is worth telling and this year we told the story of the students from Oltenita, but they are not our only winners!
The 3rd prize in the high-school category went to a team from the “Octavian Goga” National College in Sibiu, which, I later learned, also qualified in the US “Genius Olympyad” – a robotics contest. Under the coordination of Florentina Ileșan, their teacher, Alexandru Rădac, Codrin Muntean and Daniel Marpozan, students in the 10th grade, have created an e-home system that can control the house lights and that monitors the number of people inside, based on infrared barriers.
At the gymnasium level, the 1st place was won by the team of the National College of Arts “Nichita Stănescu” in Ploiești, coordinated by professor Veronica Enache, with the idea of an ecological library, 2nd place belonged to the National College of Arts “Queen Maria” in Constanta, coordinated by professor Gabriela Burlacu, for the idea of a smart house that offers comfort with low impact on the environment, and the 3rd place belonged to the team of “Traian Lalescu” Theoretical High School in Hunedoara, coordinated by professor Elena Nistor, with the idea of a smart multifunctional bank.
You must know that, after the enrollments ending in December, Play Energy has two phases - first, selection by region (there are award winners at this level), then the best projects go into the national phase, where the evaluation criteria are the relevance of the theme and the consistency, the creativity, the effort made in implementing the project and the interpretation of the proposed theme, which in 2018 was “Put your energy on the move”.
At the international level, the competition started in 2003 and was organized in 18 countries, and the impact is extraordinary – about 20 million children came in contact with the project, directly or indirectly. Teachers receive a yearly guide with interesting energy information and the transformations that the sector is currently going through and a brochure of activities that they can do in the classroom, with the students. Thus, the energy field is easier to understand and becomes a playground for the innovative ideas of children.