I’ve got a new game for the grandkids riding with me.
I let ‘em practice counting the number of those damn bird killers that are actually turning out of the dozens we see in drives around Montana, Wyoming and Colorado.
The 3yo gets that job, since she’s only reliable up to her age right now. The older kids count ALL of ‘em, the 11yo has been working out percentages and the high school cutie...well, she’s had to be told to stop talking back to her “Science” teacher after all these Engineering Evaluation sessions during Rides with Gramps.
Guess I’m just a bad influence.
The lesson could be expanded a bit, probably something you’ve already thought of.
“If 3 of these towers kill x number of birds per day, how many would 300 of these towers kill each year?”
For the more advanced: “If .01% of the birds killed were birds protected by the EPA, how many protected birds were killed last year on that wind farm we just drove through?”
Trick question for the brainiac: “ if the typical fine for killing a protected bird is $15,000 (I’m not sure what it actually is) how large was wind farms fine last year?”
Answer “$0, the EPA protects the windmill farms from anyone counting how many protected birds are killed, thus protected birds are being killed by protected windmills.”
Extra credit question:” define ‘protected’ as it pertains to birds, and to windmills, expounding on the various meanings of the word.