Four students from Tripp Middle School, Keefer Vincent, Caleb Wood, Jacob White, and myself Abigail White visited the Transportation Museum in Owlshead. Mr. Bilodeau and Mrs. Cynthia Duguay are in charge of the field trip. We left Friday, Nov. l8, at 7 a.m. from the elementary school and arrived at the museum at 9:30. Once there, we formed a group with a few home school student, while, the 30 high school students from Poland started on a separate schedule.
We began by watching a power point on “The History of Transportation,” The power point was composed by Erik from staff. Since the history of transportation is a very large, widespread field, he admitted that he could not cover everything and that he had to cut out aviation. He did however, include some shocking facts. For instance, we now have over 160 million cars in America. One big problem is where will we put these cars? Will we have to keep destroying homes, rivers, and farmland, just to have space for the population to drive? If the pattern of these increasing numbers continue, we will end up with 360 million cars in the U.S. by the year 2050. A number, Eric describes, as “almost unfathomable.”
After that, we were lead to another room where we saw a presentation on alternative fuels. It was amazing how many alternative ideas people have come up with. I mean, electricity, propane, ethanol… the list goes on. Unfortunately, nothing we have found yet is quite as efficient as gasoline. Electricity can’t go far without having to change the battery, ethanol is incredibly hard and expensive to refine enough to use… everything has a catch.
The gasoline company diesel has made a new discovery though. By using old French fry oil they have created a new alternative fuel called biodiesel. Sure your car will smell like a fast food restaurant, but we could fully benefit in the long run.
And then, of course, we have highbred vehicles. The interesting thing about these is that they run on both electricity and gasoline. Now, I already said how electrical cars will run out of battery power quickly, hut the way they work, the gasoline charges the battery whenever the car is stopped. So we aren’t completely getting rid of gasoline, but we are seriously reducing the pollution and fuel consumption.
After the presentation, the Maine Energy Education Program(M.E.E.P.) guy did a demonstration with a mini replica of a hydrogen vehicle. It was interesting, first it only went straight, and we had to pick it up and set it back down to keep it in the circle. Eventually, it ran out of fuel and stopped.
When we had talked about that for a little while, we want out into the staff parking lot and looked at some of the hybrid vehicles.
We came back to do another activity called the car free vacation. We split up into groups and received maps. We only had a certain amount of money and time before we had to get to the ferry at the bottom of the map. There were lots of activities, such as a baseball game, a soccer game in the park, and of course food, but each time square we had to pass through was a certain amount walking and a certain amount on a bus. In the end, when everyone was done, we found that the best method was to pool your money together and make decisions as a group. The point that he was trying to make was that it is a little more difficult to collaborate with others and make group decisions than just having your personal car and going and doing where and what you want. People should really consider doing things differently, the world would probably benefit.
Later on, while we were having lunch, we got into a discussion. The M.E.E.P. guy had an interesting theory, “people miles per gallon.” We started talking about how when we drove in we used and entire school bus for so few people. Well, we came to the conclusion that a one forth filled bus is more efficient than just one person in a regular sized car alone.
We also talked about the “homework.” Before we came we were supposed to keep track of how many cars we saw and how many people we saw in them. The results were quite interesting. I interpreted the assignment slightly differently.
While we were leaving to have a free look around the museum, I caught Dave Carpenter from Maine Energy Education for a quote.
“What goals or methods do you see happening in the future?” I asked.
“I think there should be a diversity of fuel types and transportation system. We shouldn’t put all our eggs in one basket. Hybrids are great, but lets not say they have all the answers. There is always room to grow, and invest time in new ideas.”
I think he had a point. We shouldn’t be trying to change everything because then we’ll just become dependent on something else. I agree having a widespread diversity of transportation is the way to go.
Later on, after we had checked out the museum for ourselves, a guide came and gave us a little information on a few things. Back when the idea of automobiles was fairly new, gasoline powered and electricity powered cars were equally popular. Then the Ford Model T, one of the first gasoline powered cars, came out. It was called “the working man’s car,” because it was actually affordable, 15 million of these sold, soon making electric cars nearly obsolete.
Another thing I found really interesting was in one of the cars, there were electric batteries and gasoline. It worked about the same way as the so called new hybrid vehicles. It then occurred to me that history was repeating itself. We are taking old ideas and improving them. Hybrids are not a new concept, cars with gas and electricity wars being invented and used 100 years ago. This gets me thinking, I wonder what we will try to do next?
Finally, when it was time to go, and we were on the bus, I got talking to Mrs. Duguay. She said, “If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we solve our transportation problems?”
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