Local students build, test-drive electric vehicles donated by Coastal Electric Cooperative Foundation

The wheels were turn­ing on Sat­ur­day – lit­er­al­ly – as stu­dents from First Pres­by­ter­ian Chris­t­ian Acad­e­my and Rich­mond Hill High School show­cased the work­ing elec­tric vehi­cles they built as part of their math, sci­ence and research class­es.

Stu­dents applied the dis­ci­plines of sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, engi­neer­ing and math­e­mat­ics (STEM) to con­struct the elec­tric go-kart-style vehi­cles built from kits donat­ed by the Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Foun­da­tion. The two school groups met at Rich­mond Hill High School on Sat­ur­day to com­pare notes, see results of the oth­er class’s hard work and test-dri­ve their vehi­cles. The Foun­da­tion also donat­ed a kit to Brad­well Insti­tute, who will intro­duce the elec­tric vehi­cle project to their stu­dents next year.

“We are proud of the inno­v­a­tive think­ing and hard work these stu­dents invest­ed in the elec­tric vehi­cle project,” said Whit Hol­low­ell, Coastal Elec­tric CEO. “We are glad we could play a part in empow­er­ing them to learn new skills and grow in their prob­lem-solv­ing abil­i­ties. But inspired teach­ers like Emma Fettes and Hol­ly Kil­lough are the real heroes who bring project-based learn­ing expe­ri­ences like this into their class­rooms and empow­er young minds to con­sid­er career paths in sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, engi­neer­ing and math.”

The elec­tric vehi­cle project is one of many sim­i­lar pro­grams sup­port­ed by mem­bers of Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive with their vol­un­tary con­tri­bu­tions to the Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Foun­da­tion each month through Oper­a­tion Round Up. The Foun­da­tion sup­ports local­ly-award­ed schol­ar­ships, the Wash­ing­ton Youth Tour lead­er­ship expe­ri­ence and Bright Ideas grants and sup­ports com­mu­ni­ty needs relat­ed to food, health, shel­ter, safe­ty and edu­ca­tion.