Jim Prato

In an effort to encourage the Peabody community to use alternative resources of energy, Prato has joined students from his Applied Engineering class and students from Peabody Veterans Memorial High School's vocational program to create "Designing and Building a Mobile Windmill: an Alternative Energy Demonstration". The program will serve as an introduction to the rewards and challenges of "green" design and engineering to younger students and high school students. A flatbed trailer will mobilize the model windmill and take it to Peabody's eight elementary schools to be viewed. His students will help demonstrate their work in conjunction with collaboration with teachers to develop effective science lessons using the portable units. The student designers will work on teams and present their findings at an Alternative Energy Forum in November. Whoever creates a winning design will be selected to build the scale-model windmill during the second half of the year. This program will introduce opportunities in the applied math and engineering fields and teach conservation as well as environmental science in elementary schools. Prato resides in Ipswich.