THE PEDAL-POWERED CLASSROOM

While the world often moves fast around him, Joey Feinstein likes to take it slow. “I still don’t own a car,” Feinstein laughs. “I have always commuted largely by bike. We now have two kids and we’ve had both on the bike since they were 3 months old.” It’s a life he not only loves but one he truly believes in.

As the founder and Executive Director of Climate Cycle, Feinstein has spent more than a decade expanding on an idea that began with a cross-country bike trip when he was just 24 years old. That idea initially began as a bikeathon that raised nearly a million dollars for solar panel installations in Chicago public schools.

Feinstein’s vision then evolved into ReGeneration Stations—first-of-a-kind pedal-powered classrooms where students create their own electricity using a bike paired with an energy bank.

“The kids absolutely love it,” says Feinstein of Climate Cycle’s ReGeneration Stations. “When they get on those bikes, they can power everything from cooktops to Chromebooks. It’s a very empowering thing for them. It’s like watching a bolt of electricity go through the classroom.”

Indeed, Climate Cycle’s ReGeneration Stations, currently found in classrooms at Grayslake’s Prairie Crossing Charter School, help students mentally while also directly impacting their physical health.

“They can be the generators of energy,” says Feinstein. “It gets these students moving. Students and everybody in our society increasingly spend so much time being sedentary. With the Stations, they put their bodies to work and really see the fruits of their labor with an immediate return. This is a great way to truly embody STEM education.”

The Stations provide a fun way to learn about clean energy and environmental stewardship; lessons Feinstein hopes students will carry with them as they grow older. “They know that are helping support a cause that they recognize is really important to their future,” explains Feinstein.

Feinstein is eager to share these ideals with more and more schools. “I’ve worked with probably well over 100 schools at this point,” Feinstein remarks. “The goal now is, come 2025, that we can start putting these into more schools, using Prairie Crossing Charter School as a blueprint. Prairie Crossing is such a great incubator because the school is very forward-thinking about sustainability and wants to help other schools implement sustainability where they can.”

Feinstein hopes to use some of the incredible feedback he has received from students and teachers to ensure that Climate Cycle continues to evolve with the times.

“We want to start to sync this with some kind of online component that would store information such as how much energy has been banked,” concludes Feinstein. “Also, once we have more schools, we could potentially have competitions among schools as to who can bank the most energy. More than anything, I want to really propel the cause.”

For more information, please visit climatecycle.org.