As gas prices continue to cause financial pain for drivers across the state, it has many continuing to focus on renewable energies, even those not yet old enough to drive.

Middle school students across the Tug Hill are creating change. Forty-one students from five different schools formed 11 teams to take part in the wind blade challenge.

“It’s cool to make something with your own two hands that moves and makes volts,” Lowville Academy student Jonathan Ward said.

The wind blade challenge, hosted by the Jefferson-Lewis BOCES Engineering and Design Program, asks students in grades six to nine to craft the best blades, ones that will create the most power.

It was a challenge accepted by Ward and his classmates at Lowville.

“I like building stuff. I like creating stuff. It’s cool to see something I created do what I created it for,” Ward said.

While the kids may be too young to drive, they are well aware of what their parents are paying to fuel their cars. It’s awareness that fosters that drive for actual change.

“The more we think and the more we try to create, it’s, like, maybe everyone will start going to electric cars. Maybe. It’s possible,” Ward said.

Whether it’s alternatives to fuel or wind energy, it’s that desire that instructors said this challenge is all about.

“These kids are the future,” engineering and design teacher Walter Berwick said. "They’re going to be planning the future as they go. Hopefully, they, as they go through the years, they’ll find their little niche in the world and make it better.”

As part of the challenge, the students not only had to produce the most voltage, but also see how fast their spinning blades could lift a weight.