“It’s a double dream come true,” says Monica Opare, founder of the Golden Sunbeam charity school, “because we are going to get equipment that the children can play with and then at the same time we are going to get electricity from it and that is exciting.”

“These villages and schools don’t have electricity. As children push the merry-go-round, it [generates] electricity that [lights] the school rooms,” says BYU professor Charles Harrell from the Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology.  The first project was completed in 2008.

The project was co-sponsored by Empower Playgrounds, Inc. and BYU’s special Capstone project program, wherein technology students plan and complete projects for real business needs.

“Our objective overall is to improve quality of life in rural Ghana,” says Empower Playgrounds founder Ben Markham. “This project will enhance education by providing power for lighting, giving children opportunities for fun and also giving them a hands-on science laboratory.”

“In the rural villages the kids almost have no toys. I seldom saw the kids playing with anything other than a car tire or something else that could be used as a wheel,” says Markham, a retired engineer who served in Ghana as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

When he approached BYU about the project, Markham challenged BYU students to engineer a device that could generate power but would be fun, not work, for the children. To make it fun to ride, the students used a gearbox to multiply the rotation speed and incorporated circuitry to limit the amount of energy extracted from the system.

“The spinning is converted through a gearbox. The gearbox takes their rotation and multiplies it by 35, which then spins the generator and the generator is what converts that energy into electrical energy,” says BYU technology student Ben Drewry.

“So we’ve tried to balance fun, and getting an interesting amount of power from the device,” says Markham.

The power generated by the merry-go-round is stored in a car battery that recharges several dozen portable LED lights that can be used in classrooms and homes. Many families have little or no lighting in the evenings, relying on kerosene lamps, candles, or open flame “bobo” lights. Markham hopes that better lighting at home will lead to greater literacy and productivity for children and their families.

“Once the students have finished learning in the schoolrooms, they’re able to take one of these lamps home with them to light their homes,” added Harrell.

“We can right now have light for the kids, we can have evening classes, their parents can encourage them to do their assignments at home, and I can just imagine what it is going to be like; it’s like a liberation,” says Opare.

Although the current system is designed to charge the LED lights, Markham says the merry-go-round can be used for other applications.

“The amount of power available would easily recharge cell phones and laptop computers, which will probably be uses we’ll look to in the future,” he says.

With donor support, Empower Playgrounds hopes to bring inexpensive lighting and playground equipment to thousands of schools in Ghana and elsewhere in Africa.

BYU engineering and technology students worked more than a year on the prototype merry-go-round which is designed to be built with materials available in Ghana including recycled car parts.

“What we’d like to accomplish is not just to build a single prototype but to define a process, that is replicable, so that other facilities in Ghana, and in any part of the world, could duplicate this same process,” says Harrell.

In May, students from the Marriott School of Management met with Ghanaian education officials and made village school visits to identify site selection criteria for future Empower Playgrounds projects. In addition to the merry-go-round design, EPI is also investigating designs for an electricity-generating zip line and a swing set to provide additional play and power for village schools. For more information, see www.empowerplaygrounds.org.

Watch a short video about the project.

See the full report.

A few years ago when BYU students volunteered in Southeast Asia, they spent their time working in the fields. Today when students volunteer there, they spend their time teaching the people English. Why? The people they were working with told the students that they already knew how to work their fields and could do it alone, but if they knew English, they would be able to leave the fields and get a better job in the city.

“Using their education and academic expertise, students can have a greater impact than they would by just donating time and strength,” said Lynn Henrichsen, a professor of linguistics and English language who trains students before they go abroad to teach English. “Service-learning truly fits BYU’s motto of ‘Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve.’”

Teaching English abroad is just one example of service learning. The trend toward service-learning is growing at schools in Utah and on a national scale.

According to the Community Involvement and Service-Learning Web site of the University of Minnesota, service-learning involves earning credit for a class where students are involved with community organizations and projects as a part of their course work in order to apply class principles to service experiences. Service-learning is a national initiative in higher education, and it is being implemented in various departments of many universities.

“The trend toward service-learning is part of a turning point in volunteerism around the country, and college students are right in the middle of it,” said Casey Peterson, director of the BYU Center for Service and Learning. “Students are no longer interested in traditional services organizations such as Kiwanis and Lion’s clubs, but the spirit of service is alive and strong in today’s youth and the number of service hours is increasing. It is typical of this generation to want to apply the things that they are learning. They don’t just want to read a book. ”

The way that service-learning programs are implemented is different at every university, but the principles of service are the same, Peterson said. BYU focuses on the grassroots efforts of service-learning. BYU does not currently designate service-learning courses, but 30-40 percent of classes at BYU have a service-learning component, and other service is done by students on an individual basis through programs at the Center for Service and Learning. Student can also enroll in StDev 214, “Learning Through Service,” to learn more about the methods, theories and applications of service so that they can then integrate these into their own majors.

“One reason that the trend towards service-learning is growing is that students who were involved with experiential service courses during college, are now becoming faculty members and professors,” Peterson said. “They realize the benefits of service-learning, because they were involved in it when they were students.”

Some disciplines, such as education, languages and health related majors, can lend themselves more easily to service learning, but service can be integrated into any field of study.

Scott Hannay, a recently graduated Latin American Studies major and BYU’s former Service Council president, worked to integrate service into his education. Before serving on the service council, he worked on a committee for the Food and Care Coalition and spent two years as a program director for Project Youth.

“As you get involved with service at any level, you develop the habit of thinking about how you can make a difference no matter where you are,” Hannay said. “You will start thinking about how you can apply service to whatever field you are studying.”

Scott used to just worry about finding a career that would allow him to provide well for his family, but now he thinks about how he can use his studies to make a difference for families around the globe, he said.

“Learning about the Latin American people has motivated me to work on implementing programs for them in this area,” Hannay said. “This idea grew out of my service experiences and my major.”

There are many people and groups willing to help students and universities incorporate service-learning at some level. Campus Compact is a national organization designed to encourage civic engagement and help universities integrate service into their curriculums. This organization promotes service-learning, volunteerism, advocacy and activism among college students at public and private universities.

“The way that service is integrated into the classroom is up to the university because effective integration methods differ from school to school,” said Melissa Miller Kincart, executive director of Utah Campus Compact. “Some students and faculty would rather keep civic engagement outside the classroom, but all around the trend is to mix service-learning in some way with student affairs.”

In Utah there are three colleges that are working to integrate one model for civic engagement, service and academics. These schools are Weber State University, Westminster College and the University of Utah. The other schools, like BYU, have separate programs.