Shown is the wind turbine at the Hoosier Energy Education Center in Merom. The information gained from these systems will help Hoosier Energy members provide detailed statistics about these renewable energy applications. The systems in place at the education center include: wind turbine, solar panel array, solar hot water heater and a geothermal cooling unit.

The surroundings at the Hoosier Energy Environmental Education Center are peaceful. Wildlife roams in the woods, turtles and snakes come and go at the water’s edge, and intermittent gusts of wind and or sunny skies create a measurable amount of renewable energy.

Across the water is Hoosier Energy’s largest generation asset — Merom Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant. The station and the education center are married by Turtle Creek Reservoir — a 1,550-acre lake in Sullivan County, a cooling facility that doubles as a fisherman’s paradise. As a whole, the campus is a mecca of educational resources that some 32,000 people have witnessed in the last 20 years.

Of the many visitors, approximately 18,500 have been students. Teachers have used the education center as a classroom, and the surrounding property as a window to nature’s offerings.

While the setting is serene, a busload of students on any given day will bring life to the rural facility. It might be a kindergarten class painting solar jars or a group of Eagle Scouts studying the preserved forest animals donated to the program.

Through the years, the program has grown to support a number of classroom initiatives, including a lending library for teachers and homeschooling parents among member systems, an eighth grade rafting trip in Sullivan County and regular participation handing out Poplar trees at the Indiana Earth Day event in Indianapolis.

A LEARNING RESOURCE

What: Hoosier Energy’s Environmental Education Center

Where: Sullivan, Indiana

Renewable energy on site:

Solar array, wind turbine, solar water heater

More info: hepn.com/environmentaleducation.asp