Students learn solar energy at Southwest Junior High
Sachiko Miyakawa
Elizabeth Schultz, a KU professor emerita of English, worries young people today know less and less about the natural world. She said more young people are raised in a city. They are afraid of insects, frogs and snakes. They have never grown their own vegetables. She said some young people depend on fast food and plastic bottles. They could not imagine a life without a heater or air conditioning.
“Though they may be aware of global environmental crises,” Schultz said. “They really, I think, have very little understanding of what it means to live a sustainable life.”
Schultz created the Elizabeth Schultz Environmental Fund. The fund supports environmental projects in Douglas County. She said she hoped a solar power project at Lawrence Southwest Junior High School would help students learn about alternative energy sources. She wanted students to recognize problems like future scarcities of water and fossil fuels. She also said students could think about using other means. They may carpool and ride a bicycle instead of just driving a car.
Southwest Junior High School recently installed a solar power generator on the roof of its building and had a ceremony last month. A kiosk in the school's hallway shows the amount of energy generated. It also has a presentation that explains the process of generating solar electricity. The solar installation teaches students in science classes about solar electricity.
Sarah Hill-Nelson, a representative of BEF and owner and operator of Bowersock, initiated the project at Southwest Junior High School in 2006 to encourage students to learn about electricity and raise awareness of clean energy. She also applied for the grant from the Elizabeth Schultz Environmental Fund to cover the rest of the cost.
“It’s only a 1.2 kilowatt,” Hill-Nelson said. “It’s not designed to be a big producer. It’s really designed for the educational aspect.”
The school’s science classes follows lessons provided by Solar 4R Schools, a division of BEF. Trish Bransky, the principal at Southwest Junior High School, said the school would use the solar project to teach physical science and environmental issues. She said students would also use the graphs and charts generated by the kiosk in a math class.
Bransky said one of the lessons asked students to read a electric meter at home so that they could know how much energy their home is using. Also some lessons encourage students to look at current energy-related events and global warming issues.
“This is the age when students start to make opinions about how they want to live their lives,” Bransky said. “They are becoming aware of all sorts of issues. They are very concerned about the environment. They don’t want to live in a polluted world. The more we help them see that there are some choices that can be made, the better they will become making choices.”
Hill-Nelson said her goal is to to promote more renewable energy and reduce coal-generated energy. But in the short run, she said she wanted to have another solar project in one or two years.
Hill-Nelson said 78 percent of Lawrence's electricity came from coal. Her goal is to promote more renewable energy and reduce coal-generated energy.
She also said she wanted have another solar project in one or two years at another junior high school in Lawrence or the University of Kansas.
“We’re going to start making changes about the way we generate and use electricity,” Hill-Nelson said. “We have to start making students think about this stuff.”
Brian A. Rock, associate professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering, said plenty of funding for solar energy research existed in the United States from the late 1970s to 1985. Also solar thermal energy, a technology which uses solar energy for heating, was popular during 1920s to 1930s in the United States and worldwide. He said large Industries in Florida and Southern California built solar collection systems for heating water.
However, he said, the introduction of cheap natural gas and electricity reduced the use of solar power in the United States.
“Whenever we talk about this issue, we have to talk about economics,” Rock said. “Economics always wins. Unfortunately no solar technologies are, currently or purely economically, competitive with conventional energy sources.”
Rock said producing a high-efficiency photovoltaic module required much natural gas, for instance.
He said conventional energy would eventually become scarce, and solar power technologies would develop. People will have to rely on other energy sources such as nuclear energy supplemented by solar electric and wind generation about a hundred years from now.
“Future is good for solar energy systems,” Rock said. “But it’s part of the future. It’s not the only thing in the future. We’re going to have to have other energy sources.”
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