Four and 5 year olds know more about what’s going on in their world than some may think.

The Maryville Head Start classroom located at Community Services Inc. completed a series of workshops last week educating the children on energy and what it means to them.

For 20 minutes a day, every day last week, nine workers in the energy and weatherization department at CSI helped the youngsters understand what energy is and the things that even they can do to help save it.

The group also traveled to Conception’s wind farm. Eric Chamberlain, a Rock Port resident, who has been involved in getting the wind turbines up in Rock Port and in Conception, talked to the children about wind energy. Chamberlain explained to the students what the turbines did, how engineers constructed them and got as close as they could to the towers — within safety restrictions.

The class even made pinwheels using pencils, so that they could blow on them and relate them to how the much larger wind turbines would work.

Laura Parman, weatherization and housing coordinator at CSI, was responsible for setting the field trip up, and said it was very successful, and the kids thought it was interesting.

“When Eric got on the bus, he asked the kids ‘do you know what these (meaning the wind turbines) are for?’“ Parman said. “And right away several of the kids said to save energy.”

To hear those kinds of responses out of those 4 and 5 year olds didn’t surprise Parman at all.

“Some of them even responded by saying, ‘to save mom and dad money.’ They are very intelligent,” she said. “Kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for.”

Danna Seipel, housing and energy director for CSI, presented the mini-workshops during the week, with the help of other employees in her department.

Parman said they discussed what energy is, how if affects people and how to save energy. Some of the examples explained to the children included simple tips like shutting off the lights when you aren’t in that room and keeping the refrigerator door closed.

“It was good to see what that age level knew about energy and how to save it,” she said.

Last week was a pilot test run for the Maryville’s Head Start, and will help determine if the program was a success for their students. Parman said they are considering making it a district project for other Head Start classrooms in the five-county area.

“It was great, and I know that our staff really enjoyed getting to spend time with them,” Parman said. “The kids were always very happy to see us in the mornings.”