Pilgrim High School science teacher Gregory Rowe recently received a $60,000 grant from the Rhode Island Department of Education, a goal he’d been working toward since November.

Rowe previously taught environmental science at Burrillville High School. His lesson plans involved building and tracking miniature boats and making wind turbines, and he even dabbled in beekeeping. Rowe credits his time in Burrillville as his inspiration not only for his curriculum at Pilgrim but also for applying for the state grant.

“Burrillville was a great experience, great teachers,” he said. “I loved their campus because they had a stream as well as a pond on school grounds, and I thought there’s no reason we can’t do that here with Narragansett [Bay] being five, ten minutes down the road.”

Being from Warwick, Rowe wanted to bring his knowledge to his own community and transferred to Pilgrim three years ago. Upon being hired, he brought his idea for an environmental-science Career and Technical Education program to administrators after seeing how much his previous students enjoyed it. He knew this would be a great opportunity for his new students to gain more hands-on experience with environmental science, specifically offshore wind power.

“There isn’t really a CTE program in the state that’s focused on offshore wind, even though we have it right off our coast,” Rowe explained.

Before getting his teaching degree from Providence College and his state certification in 2019, Rowe was a consultant. He did environmental assessments of various energy projects for permitting, a line of work where he frequently dealt with offshore winds. Now that he is a teacher – and one who works so near Narragansett Bay – he wants to bring his knowledge of the environment to his classroom, giving his students hands-on, real-world experiences.

Rowe’s efforts have proven to be successful.

Rather than simply reading about science, his students are engaged in assignments that offer a fruitful learning environment. Most notably, Rowe has his students build 4-foot kit sailboats. The kits cost about $5,000, and when completed the boats have water and air sensors as well as GPS navigation. They are solar powered.

The information is transmitted to the classroom where students monitor conditions where the boats are, even making calculations on where they will be in 24 hours based on the currents and winds.  The boats are launched 100 miles offshore by URI. One boat was lost at sea, although Rowe holds out hope it will be found and returned. And one made it to the Bay of Fundy. As the GPS gave the boat’s location having been washed ashore, he was able to make local connections to return to the sea. On one mission, a boat even sailed through a tropical storm and arrived home in one piece.

Rowe’s students also put together mini wind turbines to power light bulbs and allow them to measure the amount of voltage generated by different blade designs. Rowe plans to dedicate his summer to learning how to best 3D-printed wind turbine blades.

Principal Toby Gibbons called Rowe an asset to Pilgrim’s science department:.

“We are so thrilled he took the initiative to bring this new program to PHS,” he said. 

With the state grant, Rowe plans to buy more materials to continue giving his students hands-on experiences – materials for mini boats and mini wind turbines as well as waders for when he takes students down to the water for assignments.

Rowe hopes the curriculum he has designed will get kids more interested in learning about the environment and science as a whole. “It’s hands-on experiences that got me excited in science, and I’d like to share my experiences in the best way I know how,” he said. His new curriculum is set to go into effect at Pilgrim next year.