LANGLEY — Greg Ballog’s physics class got a little brighter recently.

A Puget Sound Energy and South Whidbey Schools Foundation grant of $1,325 enabled Ballog and fellow South Whidbey High School physics teacher Jay Freundlich to purchase a hand-crank generator and 15 kilowatt meters.

More than the equipment, however, are the expanded lessons South Whidbey’s physics teachers will have for years to come. A handful of students, all boys in their junior or senior year, cranked the generator as hard as they could to power a small light bulb attached to the power cables.

“The idea is to give students an appreciation of what electrical energy means,” Ballog said.

In the case of the hand generator, electrical energy means arm exhaustion and sweat. As for the energy monitors, the plan is to have students take them home to measure energy consumption by plugging it into an outlet, then plugging an appliance or device into that to measure how much energy is used, and at what cost.

One student already has plans to conduct an energy audit for his senior project next year. Evan Welch, a junior in Ballog’s physics class, said he plans to use the energy meters at a South Whidbey business (he was hoping the South Whidbey Commons), where he can identify inefficient appliances and reduce operational costs. The first phase began at his home, though.

“I’ve started to put monitors all over my house, much to my parents’ chagrin,” Welch said.

Though the goal is to find ways of saving money, he admitted the hand-generator would be a tough sell.

“I’m not sure how well I could convince someone to crank for their energy,” Welch said.

That kind of take-home education was exactly what the schools foundation and Puget Sound Energy had in mind for the grant. Chris Gibson, vice president of the foundation, learned from the energy company that funds were available for educational purposes, specifically related to energy lessons. Puget Sound Energy put in $750, and the South Whidbey Schools Foundation added $575 to purchase the equipment.

“We were aware that some of the teachers, Jay, Greg and Jeff Greene, have energy portions in their curriculum,” Gibson said. “We put two and two together, added some of our own money and it all worked out.”

Ballog and Freundlich also made a portable energy meter like the one outside a home to measure how much energy is used in the classrooms. Ballog said the gear will likely be incorporated into the physics lesson plans next school year, though students in his 18-person class were thrilled to test the new experiment when it arrived in late April.

“There’s a lot of testing we have to do,” Ballog said.