Have you ever wonder about how electricity works and what creates electricity? And How Cambodia have their electricity? That was what we learned in an exploration called “Electricity: Economics, Infrastructure & Access” It might sound so long and complicated, but in an easy way it is about what is electricity and how it works. We were also focusing on electricity in Cambodia. We started the exploration with basic lessons about electricity, like its history, how it works, and we also have fun while experimenting with the Leyden jar which is the bigging of electricity. It was hard at first for me. I didn’t know where to start or what should I work on, but as time goes on my interest started to grow as well as my understanding of it.
Finally, our first trip came. It wasn’t a far trip, it was just nearby here. We went to the energy lab. We got to know even more about electricity resources around the world as well as in Cambodia. After that, we went to ISPP which is an international school in Phnom Penh to see their Mini solar farm. I personally never know ISPP used solar as their main electricity resource, but they are and it was on their school building rooftops. It was amazing. I was so curious about everything related to solar and it was still on my mind even after the trip.
After a while of studying different types of electricity resources, we were learning about solar, hydro dams, Thermal, Nuclear power, and more. I was fully into solar. It is a great resource that people should be using because it used sunlight which we will never run out of. In class, we were dividing into a team to work on one of those resources that we were interested in, and just like that Solar was what I was working on. In my team, we were writing an article about solar. The article includes how it works, the advantages and disadvantages, different types of solar energy systems and solar energy in Cambodia. Everything that I was curious about started to become like a solved riddle or an open book. The article helps me to understand more about solar and I got to improve my writing skills which I was not so confident with too.
Another unforgettable trip came. We got to visit Okra solar mini-grid in Kompong Speu province, Okra solar is a solar company that provides accessible, available & affordable energy to the people living in off-grid areas. Solar mini-grid is one of the different types of solar energy. We also went to interview people who use electricity from solar mini-grid and I got to understand that besides important things for people’s life like food, electricity is their needs. Electricity also parts that help economic growth, with electricity they said that they can earn more than they used to.
This is a whole new perspective I have toward electricity. I thought that without them we will just need to live in the dark, but now I got to know that electricity is a part of life without them life will be more difficult and nothing could be improved or develop. I learned that we need to save them because they are important, saving electricity for today so then we can have a better tomorrow. When some people have electricity to use, they didn’t know or think about the people out there who are living in the dark with no hopes of improving their life and no hope of getting off from the darkness that they were in. After understanding and learning all of these, I wanted everyone to know about it and to care about it as much as we do. Now that we got to learn about it, I felt lucky and somehow connected to the people out there, connected because I felt like I got to show people out there that they are not alone, we understanding how they felt and there are always people who wanted to help and are caring about them. This seven weeks exploration was passing by like a dream, I can’t get enough, but at last, I wanted everyone to know that this learning experience didn’t only help me with my education, but it makes me realized how lucky I am to have almost everything I need in life. It teaches me to appreciate everything I have and to help save and take care of everything I have.