Cleaner energy education in the past has been an afterthought, but with the new curriculum at the Common Ground High School in New Haven that consciousness is becoming integral to the four R”™s: reading, ”™riting. ”™rithmetic and renewable.
In the first Connecticut launch of a solar energy curriculum, designed by the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund (CCEF) and dubbed Learning for Clean Energy Innovation, the ninth-grade program will focus initially on solar energy education and will later be expanded to cover fuel cells and wind energy.
Teachers of the curriculum will take part in professional development sessions aligned with the Connecticut Department of Education”™s Science Frameworks. The sessions were offered to teachers from the 61 towns in the state who are participating in the “20 Percent by 2010 Campaign.”
“Common Ground has modeled environmental practices on site for a decade,” said Oliver Barton, director of the Common Ground High School New Haven Ecology Project. “This collaboration with CCEF adds solar electricity production and monitoring to our campus and provides schools across the state with real-time data for energy research with students. Like the carbon-offset value of the photovoltaic system, the education value now extends well beyond the walls of this school.”
The launch at Common Ground was held in conjunction with the dedication of a 2-kW solar array installed by Pioneer Valley PhotoVoltaics on the school”™s roof. A monitoring system developed by Heliotronics Inc. will provide solar energy data, making the solar energy education unit the first in the state to use real-time information. The data from this system will be used directly in the ninth-grade common ground classroom and will be accessible on the Internet to the other schools and teachers involved in the program.
“The Connecticut Clean Energy Fund has developed a phenomenal education program,” said Clayton Handleman, president and CEO of Heliotronics Inc. “Utilizing state-of-the-art data displays, this program teaches science and math in the timely and highly relevant context of renewable energy. Heliotronics is thrilled to have been chosen as the provider of software and Internet displays for this well-crafted, inovative program.”
About 100 teachers from 61 towns statewide will be trained in the use of the solar energy
