Studying electricity on HECO field trip

MPX10 students visited the HECO Wailua power plant this week to learn about how energy is made on the island. The students researched the HECO website and what critics of HECO are saying online to prepare their questions before the field trip.The questions were fantastic! At one point the PR representative asked if anyone else felt it was hot in the room and his coworker said "no it's just the quality of the questions you're getting!" Here's a sampling:

"If 90% of the electricity in Hawaii is fueled by sludge oil, is it really worth it to own an electric car here?"

"What does HECO doing to move away from a dependency on fossil fuels?"

"What is HECO doing to stabilize electricity prices on the island?"


"Is it better to have PV installed on the roofs of individual houses or create large scale PV farms?"

It felt like we were on the field trip with a bunch of college kids!

Girls strike a pose in their steel-toed boots. Boys pull the stoic look. 

Visits from Bikeshare Hawaii

This week our MPX class was honored to receive a visit from Bikeshare Hawaii!  COO Ben Trevino and CEO Lori McCarney (whose son is a Mid-Pacific alumni!) fielded student questions about the bikes and allowed students to take a ride.

While these bikes are not electric like the bikes MPX students are building in their STEM class, they are part of a city wide program to ease mobility. Students will be integrating the bikeshare bikes into their short films on transportation.