Tri-County Electric Cooperative has again offered a grant program with Touchstone Energy for local, private and public kindergarten through 12th grade teachers and administrators. Eight grants of $500 were awarded recently to provide for innovative, unfunded projects or materials. Qualifying projects are those that improve the learning environment or increase educational resources for the school. Director of Member Services, Bruce Barkau, tells WNSV that a couple of teachers from Nashville were recipients. High School Technology Director and teacher Paul Welte will have the class build one or more hover copters and then see what the applications are. Middle School teacher Ed Breuchaud will have the students partake in a fitness project. They will wear bracelets that will monitor how much they walk or run in a day, sleep and other statistics, which can be downloaded to show how healthy their life is. Barkau also says that a couple of teachers from Okawville Grade School were recipients. First Grade teacher Christy Sweet will be teaching electricity by showing simple circuits while putting together a flashlight of sorts. The project will involve batteries, wire, a switch and a light bulb, as they make a magnet and connect everything to turn on the bulb. Sixth Grade teacher Judy Hevner will be having the students design a home on an iPad. The goal is to make it energy efficient to cut heating and cooling costs, as they see what adding certain parts to the house to make it cheapest to keep comfortable will do. Barkau said there were 27 applications. He sends them to a neighboring Cooperative to be graded, so there is no bias. 2 other grants went to schools in Marion County and 2 others to schools in Jefferson County.