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Recommend ThisStudents, teacher investigate process of mountaintop mines, coal electricity
By Preston Knight-pknight@nvdaily.com
STRASBURG -- If Annmarie Noonan seems full of energy, it's because she had two wake-up calls about life at the same time.
Out of curiosity, she bought "Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future," by Jeff Goodell, at a book fair last year and was surprised at how little she knew of the process and effects of turning coal into electricity.
"I thought it was an outdated energy source," Noonan said.
Then came another revelation.
"Oh my gosh, I'm a teacher," Noonan said. "We should do something with this."
That explains why five teacher-selected Signal Knob Middle School students took three
weeks out of their summer vacations in August to study coal in a seminar developed by Noonan, a sixth-grade social studies teacher. As part of the class, they traveled to view an operating mountaintop removal mine in Whitesville, W.Va., and speak with local residents there, and then went to Washington to meet with representatives of two Virginia politicians to try and sway them in support of proposed legislation to clean up coal company practices.
"I often feel held back by SOLs and the climate of standardized testing," Noonan said. "I want to go deeper [and get students] to think critically."
She received School Board approval, as long as her plans came at no cost to the county. Students raised funds by selling beef jerky and received a donation from the Woodstock Rotary Club to help pay their way.
The endeavor was not to portray coal as evil, Noonan said, but to raise awareness of the various effects it has on the people and places near companies that produce it. A documentary, "The True Cost of Coal," was finished around Christmas and provides a first-hand look at what the students experienced.
It wasn't hard for the group to embrace the people they met in Whitesville because those residents, students said, appreciate their mountains just as Shenandoah County residents enjoy the Shenandoah Valley's hills.
"You would think if coal companies had mountains next to their homes, they wouldn't want theirs destroyed," seventh-grade student Miley Hupp said.
The area they visited also experienced environmental damage, students said. They met one man who talked about his hesitation to see a doctor for fear of finding out what issues he may have because of contaminated water. They also learned of an elementary school that sits next to a coal-loading silo.
"This is other people's lives," said Holly Funkhouser, an eighth-grade student.
Joining Funkhouser and Hupp were three other eighth-grade pupils -- Sophia Lederman, Alexis Mathias and Bethany Gochenour.
Noonan recently received a grant from the Helen J. Moore Educational Trust to offer the program to five more students this summer. Applications are being taken this time, and the scope will be broadened to incorporate alternative energy. A return trip to Whitesville is in the plans.
The students who went in August presented their work to the School Board earlier this year, and their documentary is scheduled to air on local television soon. What they have learned has given them their own wake-up call, as evidenced by Mathias' recent ski trip to West Virginia and her take on the surroundings.
"I was thinking, I bet deep down in that mountain somewhere, they're leveling it off," she said. "It's always fresh [on your mind]."
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It's bad enough to have a national Al Gore. Now we have these local treehuggers to push their agenda. This article is not to be about evil coal, however all the remarks indicate so. The coal company in whitesville is down there doing a job under federal regulations. The people working for the company, I would assume, are local residents making money to contribute to the town's economy. Now, I would think if the people of Whitesville had an issue with the conditions they would seek their own government representative to solve it. They have the same rights as this teacher and her students. You would think they were fighting for the rights of people in a third world country.
Instead of wasting time on this project. They should put that effort into alternative ways of producing energy. That would do more to solve this problem and eliminate the need for coal.