Manchester West is an urban, public high school serving an ethnically diverse and socioeconomically challenged population.  Our school provides an aggressive project-based, career-oriented STEAM[i] program.  Our team intent is to initiate a multi-year student-directed community service project geared towards environmental sustainability that will encompass all STEAM disciplines.  The project we are proposing is called West Winds. The West Winds Project is designed to energize and inspire students into designing, building, installing and operating an alternative energy system at the school that will reduce the building's dependence upon the electrical grid through net-metering.  An inner-city school has a limited number of options for developing such a system.  The physical plant eliminates hydro and geothermal alternatives and the start-up costs associated with photovoltaic technology is prohibitive. Via process of elimination, capturing ambient wind power and converting that into electrical energy is the logical choice.  Toward this end, several students have postulated notable and achievable design ideas. In addition to developing and designing the system, students will be responsible for every phase of the project (I.e. designing and testing prototypes, presenting to the local board of mayor and alderman for permission to develop the system, coordinating with city facility departments and engineers to meet construction and safety requirements, promoting and funding the project, and monitoring the efficiency of the system to determine cost-savings to the community).  The goal for the students is the production of a technically functioning project that will provide an actual service to the community.  The ultimate teaching goal is to furnish students with the skills, experience, and self-confidence that will prepare them for navigating the real-world 21st Century environment. The STEAM program seeks grant seed funding to begin the development of one or more of the student technology designs.  Present estimates place costs for a single working model at $1,000.00 each.  The students have not yet done cost-projections on individual working alternative energy systems, but any single system is fully expected to cost in excess of $15,000.00. The students intend to raise the necessary funds themselves in order to achieve a zero-dollars impact on the school budget.  Fundraising efforts are essential for students to understand the relationship between imagining a project and acquiring the means to make it a reality.  These efforts will also sharpen their public-speaking skills and incorporate a wide array of both graphic and projection art materials to help “sell” their ideas to potential contributors.  [i] * STEAM=Science · Technology · Engineering · Arts · Mathematics