Houghton Middle School Students Learn About Alternative Fuel Cells

A collaborative effort between students at Houghton Middle School and Michigan Tech is providing hands-on STEM experience to a group of 8^th graders.

Students in Sarah Geborkoff’s science class have been working on fuel cell projects over the last four weeks under the direction of students from Michigan Tech’s Enterprise Competition Teams.

“Green energy, alternative energy solutions, scientific processes of design and testing, communicating results—a lot of things that we would be doing in the classroom anyway, but now they’re engaged in hands-on and fun at the same time,” Geborkoff said.

The students built a small toy car and tested it for speed, distance, and carrying capacity.

The cars were powered by an eco-friendly fuel cell, showing there are alternatives to gasoline.

“They put distilled water into the fuel cell and then used a battery to charge it, it’ll separate into hydrogen and oxygen, and then they plug the fuel cell into an electric motor,” said MTU Mechanical Engineering student Patrick Gilland. “The chemical reaction happens so it turns back into water but the electrons have to go through the motor and it turns the motor.”

Gilland has been working with the class as part of an SAE International STEM outreach called AWIN—A World In Motion.

The Michigan Tech teams brought out their own test vehicles to the middle school on Friday to show what these types of vehicles would look like full scale.

“Formula was represented.  Clean Snow and Baja had their vehicles here,” Gilland said. “Supermileage is getting ready for a competition so their car is being worked on in their shop.”

The demonstration gave the students a look at what they could work on if they pursue their education in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

“I just hope that they remember it as a project that connected to the real world as an application of what they would learn in class,” said Geborkoff. “I think that is the most meaningful learning and I’m just happy that we can do this every year.”

This was the second year that Geborkoff’s class has worked with Michigan Tech on these STEM projects.