SALEM TOWNSHIP – Cheers rose when a light wind moved the blades of a newly installed wind turbine Thursday at Mt. Abram High School.

The “greening of Mt. Abram,” as Principal Jeanne Tucker called it, took another step forward as the residential turbine was pulled into place on one side of the school. A maintenance crew on the other side of the building worked on a pellet hopper and a building to house a new pellet boiler to heat the school.

The 50-foot turbine, which is expected to produce from 1.9 to 2.6 kilowatts of power per hour when it’s windy, will provide only a portion of the school’s electricity.

“The payoff is not just electricity but also education,” SAD 58 Superintendent Quenten Clark said as he watched the All Season Home Improvement crew assemble and hoist the turbine into place. Education is not only for the students but also community members as they can see the turbine work at the school, he said.

Lessons will be planned around the data received from the turbine in social studies and science classes and collected to see if there is potential for wind to power the school and perhaps, some of the town.

“This could be the first of a field of windmills,” Tucker said.

The topic of alternative energy has been incorporated into most of the school’s curriculum.

Last year, honors government students Nathan Kinney and Georgia Dixon met biweekly with teacher Barry London to explore in-depth topics discussed in class. Interest in local wind power projects led the students before the school board seeking the purchase of an anemometer, an instrument to measure the force or speed of wind, London said while watching the process Thursday.

The students did a lot of research and even pursued applications for permits from the Land Use Regulation Commission, London said. They went back to the board for approval of the project last spring.

The chosen site near the soccer fields was Kinney’s and Dixon’s first choice because strong gusts come over the mountain there.

While Kinney and Dixon missed the installation because they are away at college, London brought his senior government class outside Thursday to watch the turbine start and to tell the class about the project.

The cost of the wind turbine is about $13,000 but it should produce about $2,000 worth of electricity each year, said Roger Lambert of Strong, who sells the systems for All Seasons.