Exelon Generation launched a STEM-focused program in its power plant communities that empowers students to explore opportunities in STEM fields through a variety of subjects such as sources of energy, electricity generation and transmission, transportation, efficiency, and conservation.
The program is called Energizing Student Potential (ESP), and it’s an expansion of parent company Exelon’s program, which began in 2016 in partnership with the National Energy Education Development (NEED) Project. ESP serves students in grades 5 through 8, which is a critical time for laying the foundation for careers in STEM fields, including energy.
Since the beginning of the 2018-19 school year, Exelon Generation has partnered with the NEED Project to host one-day workshops for more than 60 teachers from 35 schools in communities near the Braidwood, Byron, Calvert Cliffs, Dresden, FitzPatrick and LaSalle nuclear plants. The workshops provided teachers with the training and resources, including hands-on kits and materials for students, that they need to develop and implement an energy curriculum in their classrooms.
Dawn Behrens, a teacher in the Saratoga School District in Morris, Ill. said the ESP workshop she attended provided many takeaways.
“The kits are helpful. The students, they need that,” Behrens said. “You have some students, who are readers, and others, who are more kinesthetic or hands-on. It helps them to understand.”
ESP also provides free, half-day energy audits of participating schools, where students work alongside energy experts to make their schools more energy efficient. The partnership also will arrange student field trips, science competitions and celebrations throughout the academic year to further engage students’ classroom learning with real-world experiences.
