PowerHouse educates Newfield residents on sustainability

On Aug. 9, the PowerHouse, a Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County (CCE-Tompkins) mobile exhibit on how to sustainably heat homes (see tinyurl.com/2z8gfqtu), visited the town of Newfield for an event hosted by the Newfield Public Library.

The PowerHouse is a miniature house that can be pulled by trailer and acts as a mobile exhibit for how to sustainably heat and cool a home, including technology such as solar panels and heat pumps. Emily Belle, community energy outreach and advising program leader for CCE-Tompkins, described the PowerHouse as a useful educational tool for promoting clean energy.

“The PowerHouse is in some ways a living lab,” Belle said. “It shows folks energy efficiency measures and renewable technology and efficient technology like heat pumps for heating and cooling, which they can be adopting in their own homes. Residential energy use accounts for a pretty large portion of greenhouse gas emissions, and so we have some pretty ambitious goals to reduce that energy use and convert to solar and wind for our electricity. And so, the PowerHouse helps people envision that and start the conversation with them.”

The PowerHouse has now visited Newfield twice. The first time it visited was last May, in conjunction with a ClimateSmart Newfield community campaign (see tinyurl.com/2ey34h25). This time, the Newfield Public Library hosted it for youth programs centered around household energy efficiency and climate change mitigation.

Sue Chaffee, director of the Newfield Public Library, said the Newfield community enjoyed visiting the PowerHouse last year, so when CCE-Tompkins reached out again, she was happy to host.

“Part of our mission is outreach and helping the community members learn about the resources that are available in Tompkins County,” Chaffee said.

In its visit this year, the PowerHouse included a new feature: a puzzle room that is similar to an escape room. Belle said this interactive activity helped participants engage with the PowerHouse, and she appreciated hearing them reflect on the event and feel as though they’d accomplished something.

“The intent of that program was really to acknowledge the climate anxiety that a lot of youth are feeling right now but also empower them with some ways they can make change and support a clean energy future,” Belle said.

Chaffee also approved of the interactive aspect of the PowerHouse’s puzzle room, which she said makes the PowerHouse’s visit more fun, and thus more appealing, for local residents.

“It gets families in there to actually see and use equipment that’s in there, as opposed to just bringing the PowerHouse to the community here to tour,” she said. “This is an added benefit because the Cooperative Extension provides fun programming for families while they’re here.”

Chaffee said the library had considered other PowerHouse-related programming that was available, such as story time or STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) activities, but chose the puzzle room because the library already has a weekly story time.

“It’s nice from our perspective because they come here with all the equipment and all the programming and actually run the program for us,” Chaffee said.

About 15 people visited the PowerHouse for the puzzle room sessions, as the PowerHouse was able to hold three puzzle room sessions with four to six people each. Belle said it would be nice to have the house open for longer and have more visitors come, but she appreciated the chance to try the programming that they hosted this time.

Chaffee said the PowerHouse plays an important role in helping people conserve energy, especially with energy prices so high. Some members of the community have signed up for home audits in preparation for converting their heating systems to the more sustainable heat pumps.

“Right now is the time for people to be thinking about things they can do to save money on their utilities this coming fall and winter,” Chaffee said.

Newfield Notes appears every Wednesday in Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to editorial@VizellaMedia.com.

In brief:

Library events

The Newfield Public Library will hold its weekly Adventure Club from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Aug. 24. Its next Game Night is 7 to 8:30 p.m. Aug. 26, as part of the Oceans of Possibility series of summer programming.

On Aug. 30, the Newfield Public Library will hold the grand finale of its Oceans of Possibility series of summer programming from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the library. It will feature a picnic, prizes and Bubbleman.

Music in Mill Park

The Newfield Music in the Park series continues this week at Mill Park from 6 to 8 p.m. Aug. 24.

Newfield Town Board to hold work session

The Newfield Town Board will hold a work session Aug. 25 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Town Hall.

For more information, including the agenda or Zoom link, go to the town’s website at newfieldny.org.