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This should be a movie
I found the characters captivating and fresh. Especially the auto shop teacher. He came off as a wonderful person who plays the country boy card not crochety like another reviewer had mentioned. I would like to see this book become a movie, its got all the right "elements" and needs to be told. You will read this book at a quick pace and then have to reread it to catch all the details.If you have any intrest in project based education this is the book that
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Downright electrifying!
This was a good idea for a book and the author skillfully weaves a page-turningly engaging account for readers of varied interests. Looked at one way, it's the story of how a diverse corps of high school students, teachers, administrators, and volunteers from the rural South came together to build an alternative energy vehicle for a competition. Applied teaching and learning at its best, it made for a fine mix of education, private enterprise, and voluntarism, and you get a good view of how it came about.Looked at another way, it's simply an exciting story with involving characters. For example, when student/driver Katrina "Eggfoot" DeLoatch is struggling through her laps at Richmond International Raceway, it's stirring stuff (incidentally, she became the first black female on a NASCAR track to . . . well, you read the story)!Along the way, you get a good sense of the cultural context, the regional strengths of the South, the richness of human diversity as evidenced by the mix of personalities who strengthened the team each in his or her own way, how the vehicle evolved, the team's advances and setbacks, the strengths, weaknesses and workings of both internal combustion gasoline engines and electric vehicles (EVs), and more. There's a lot in this book, yet it's a brisk read.As I'm particularly interested in teaching and learning, I was especially appreciative of the breadth and depth of theoretical and practical learning that students, teachers, and community volunteers gained from this. As the enterprising administrator who initiated the endeavor saw it, such a project could change a student's life, giving "a kid reason to care about ingenuity and perseverance and a true mastery of difficult subjects--the physics of friction and motion, the chemistry of energy, the principles of aerodynamics and acceleration, and the fundamentals of amps, watts, and electromagnetism. It would break across traditional school boundaries, combining resources and talent, science classes and vocational-technical, the kids who were good with their hands and the ones accustomed to working just with their heads, as a team, to learn from and appreciate each others' knowledge and abilities. It would make the students look beyond the world of northeastern North Carolina, to understand the science of air pollution or the politics of transportation. It would be fun." And the students saw that the teachers were learning, too -- and enjoying it. Needless to say, American education could use much more of this sort of thing, and one hopes that readers will generate ideas of their own as a result of reading this.Some audiences for the book: those interested in education; grassroots activists for socially and environmentally responsible causes; car buffs and race fans; those who enjoy an entertaining can-do story of humans overcoming the odds to achieve; those interested in the American South.
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An Inspiring Story of Overcoming Obstacles and Perceptions
Caroline Kettlewell has written an inspirational book that captures the essence of the people behind the successful and now world-renowned electric car team from northeastern North Carolina.From the old codger shop teacher Harold Miller, to the young, energetic educator from California, Eric Ryan, Kettlewell has painted a lifelike picture of the people involved in this project. These are people you begin to care about as the story unfolds.It's evident from reading this book that only Divine Intervention many times along the way made the project successful. If John Parker had not been friends with Miller and knew that he had been interested in building an electric car for quite some time, Miller would never have been chosen. If Ryan had not decided to move to a rural community in North Carolina and live with Parker, the project clearly would not have been successful. If Randy Shillingburg had not known Parker and had faith in his friends in North Carolina, the project would never have even begun. And if the wonderful group of students and other teachers had not decided to devote their free time on evenings and weekends, the team's electric car would never have been completed on time.Kettlewell's story also makes a strong environmental statement. Her book questions how a group of students and teachers from poor, rural schools could build an environmental-friendly vehicle -- while the nation's automakers are reluctant to do the same a decade later.Electric Dreams is a true story that makes one think, while providing an inspirational message for anyone who believes that obtacles can be overcome and students from even the poorest, most rural schools can be successful.
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