GRAND MARAIS -- At Grand Marais's Burt Township School, a special banner flies below the American flag--a banner that designates the institution as one with a green initiative.  Tuesday, the school took a major step forward in that initiative by installing a wind turbine and a solar panel.

“Living right on Lake Superior, it's obvious to me that wind power and even solar power, but especially wind power, will be utilized as much as possible,” said Principal Seth Hoopingainer.

The new technology will save the school thousands of dollars.

“It is going to end up saving the school, I'm hoping about $5,000 a year, in power costs and electricity costs,” Hoopingainer said.

Together, the environmental equipment is worth just under $71,000.  So how did a small community like Grand Marais swing the costs?  They received grants from Energy Works of Michigan, WPPI Energy, and Alger/Delta Electric.  The school only paid $91 for the technology.

But the cherry on top of the whole project:  a weather station is included in the grant money.  Students will be learning about wind and solar patterns right here in their classrooms.

“The nice thing about this turbine is it has a wireless communication so people use it for teaching,” said turbine installer, Greg Courtney of Wind Turbines of Ohio.  “We've installed just dozens of these things at schools and universities.  You can see everything this turbine is doing on a PC in a classroom.”

The school hopes to design a curriculum around the new technology at the start of this school year.