Students using their feet to power their school

Step by step, students at an Indiana high school are helping power their building just by walking.

Special tiles along the hallway floor convert the kinetic energy of the youngsters' footfalls into a sustainable energy source.

"When you step on them, and release, the kinetic movement of the tile compressing and releasing powers a generator within the tile and that electricity is transferred through a wire that runs through the ceiling to our boards which will light up simply from your power," Amanda Figola, a science teacher at Bloomington South High School, the only public high school in the country doing this, told CBS News' Alexis McAdams.

The idea to bring the pea-green flooring -- made by the London-based company Pavegen -- to the school came from the students themselves during an AP environmental science class. The students applied for a $24,000 grant funded by Duke Energy and the Raymond Foundation. That money bought one hallway's-worth of Pavegen flooring, which may not produce a huge amount of energy but allows students to experience an interactive approach to learning science.

"If you just step on it, you can actually see, visually see just in a couple seconds what you can make with that," BHSS student Maria Lysandrou said. "So, I feel like that is really cool."

Teachers hope the project gives students a good lesson in energy conservation -- and could even give back to the community.

"Our exhibit is primarily to educate and to give kids something tangible to work with in terms of energy technology," Figola said. "The hope is that once we see the data, it is possible that we could connect to our electrical grid and produce power for our grid."