Upstate NY Hosts its First JSS Area Race

Washington JSS Race on the Nation’s Mall with the NESEA Tour

On May 18, Washington, DC area middle school students will be gathered in front of our Nation’s Capital on The Mall for the year 2000 Washington Area Junior Solar Sprint Competition. Because of this, any federal legislators working that day will be able to step out of the Capital Building and get a look into the future. Any legislator with vision will be able to see that these students’ model electric cars powered by solar energy represent an ultimate earth-friendly solution to the environmental problems of today’s cars.

Along with these middle school students’ model cars of the future, legislators and others, will be able to see full-sized, road-worthy, electric, solar-electric, and hybrid gas-electric vehicles of today displaying many of the technological advances needed to get to that ultimate solution: electric vehicles powered by renewable energy sources. These electric cars, trucks, busses, vans, and motorcycles will have just traveled from New York City in the year 2000 NESEA American Tour de Sol electric vehicle championship. Although along the way these electric vehicles will not have had the opportunity to fully recharge with solar energy as the JSS cars did, (most of our power grid is still powered with fossil fuels), they will have used between 1/3 and 1/2 the gas a normal car would use traveling the same route.

NY School To Hold a JSS Race at the NESEA American Tour de Sol

John Roccanova of Webutuck Central Middle School was disappointed to learn that his fourteen JSS teams couldn’t make it to any JSS Area Race within driving distance of his school. His school has previous plans on the days of both NY races. But he was planning on bringing his students to the NESEA American Tour de Sol stop in New York City. So NESEA asked if he would like to hold his school’s JSS competition at the NESEA Tour. John jumped at the chance.

Now with John organizing this JSS event, and with his permission, NESEA is inviting other area schools to join in this race. If you are interested, please call John at: (914) 373-4100, or contact Chris Mason at NESEA at: (413) 774-6051 ext. 21.

Schools are also invited to participate at, or take a field trip to, any NESEA Tour stop from NY City to Washington, DC. If interested, please contact Nancy Hazard at NESEA at (413) 774-6051 ext. 18.

This Fall – Two New Educational Resources

For Middle Schools: NESEA will complete five extension lessons to our Getting Around Without Gasoline unit by the fall of 2000. This new set of interdisciplinary lessons, tentatively called Getting Around Clean & Green, asks students to look directly at their personal transportation habits and then use this perspective to understand: • Transportation as a Technological System, • Health Effects Of Automobile Emissions, and • History of Air Quality Regulations.

Students are then given critical and creative challenges on the topics of Carpooling, Mass Transit and using local Green & Clean Transportation Options. The final project is a student researched, designed, and produced "Travel Guide of Fun, Clean, & Green Trips" within their community.

For High School Teachers: This fall, NESEA is looking for teachers in various sized communities, two each of large, intermediate, and small size, to pilot test a new high school curriculum on alternative fueled vehicles. This new unit, tentatively titled, "Alternative-Fueled Vehicles and the American Community" will guide students as they research and graphically display the: • Technological Infrastructure, • Economic, • Environmental , • Health Impacts, and • Roles Alternative Fueled Vehicles may assume in their community in the future.