Overview

The engaged learning project is focussed on development of a design course to allow students to engage with community partners on research within the broad umbrella of wind energy engineering. Some of the projects our students have engaged in have been highly technical - e.g. design of a new blade for domestic wind turbines, some have been highly scientific - quantification of wind gusts for wind turbine fatigue loading, others have had a greater focus on environmental impacts - e.g. design of a new system to detect and quantify bird impacts. You can read more about the course, our community partners and our learning outcomes on these two posters.

Our funder: Engaged Cornell

  • Engaged Cornell – a groundbreaking, $150 million, 10-year initiative to establish community engagement and real-world learning experiences as the hallmark of the Cornell undergraduate experience – was launched on campus in 2014. Engaged Cornell is renewing and expanding Cornell’s founding commitment to “knowledge with a public purpose.” At the core of the initiative is innovation in teaching and learning through shared practices that connect students, faculty, and curricula with communities and the public realm across the globe.

    Our primary community partners

  • Weaver Wind Energy. This is a locally owned producer of small wind turbines. Find more about them here: http://weaverwindenergy.com/
  • Old Bird Inc. FInd more about them here: http://www.oldbird.org/
  • Our founding community partner was the Black Oak Wind Farm.
  • And we have partnerships with other commerical operations (covered by NDA)

    • We also work with local educational partner organizations

  • Our primary educational partner is Enfield Elementary School
  • We also have an enduring partnership with the Fenner Renewable Energy Education Center. Find more about them here: http://www.thefreecenter.org/

    • Enrolling in our course

  • If you are an Engineering student (Undergraduate or Graduate students are welcome!) you should enroll in MAE4120/4121 Community Wind Energy Research
  • If you are from CALS or another school you can enroll through EAS4120 Community Wind Energy Research
    • What do you need to be successful? A course in some fluid dynamics (or atmospheric science), interest in participatory learning and an eagerness to undertake research and education in the context of engaged learning/community engagement. To take the engineering design portion you would greatly benefit from having taken; MAE4020/4021/5020 Wind Power

    Materials about our course

    Click here to watch a video of one of the project teams deploying accelerometers at a site operated by Weaver Wind Energy
    Click here to see posters that describe the course

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