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GOLDSBORO, N.C. -- For one week, Wayne Community College in Goldsboro revs up young minds about alternative energy.

Rising eighth grader Kate Thomspon is back for her second year.

"At the camp everybody is excited," she said. "We're all ready to learn and ready to work on the things that we're given."

On this day campers were given the task of building an actual engine.

"Those are sterling engines, which have actually been around for 200 years," said Angela Wall, an applied technology instructor. "So they build the engine, they sit it on the jar of hot water and it will start running."

It's one of several hands-on experiments offered at Camp Kilowatt. The one-week workshop for both middle and high schoolers exposes them to solar, wind, fuel cell and biofuel technologies. Instructors say it also sheds light on another option for science education at the college level.

"You know sometimes they think, 'you know, Wayne or any community college is just two years you go, cheaper than a four year college,' but we have all kinds of programs here that are science and technology-related," said Wall. "So we want to expose them to that as well."