How Green Is Your School?
"Buy a hot dog at an Interlake High School Saints game this fall and save the Earth.
Really?
Well, at least save some electricity.
That's because Interlake's new concession stand will be powered by solar energy. Interlake is one of 12 schools, including Redmond High and Thomas Jefferson High in Auburn, to receive grants from Puget Sound Energy (PSE) for solar panels. The utility plans to give out at least 10 more grants to schools in the next few years.
"There seems to be a lot of demand and excitement in the schools," said PSE spokesman Andy Wappler. "[Solar] is like the 'It Girl' of energy."
Also,"Like City Light's solar panels, the main goal of PSE's program is education, not production. Most panels installed through the school grants are 1- to 2-kilowatt systems. Even Interlake's 4-kilowatt system would not produce a significant amount of the school's overall electricity. When construction finishes in September, Bellevue district officials hope the panels will completely power the concession stand.
The PSE and City Light grants come with a kiosk where students can monitor the panel's production. All the data from the kiosks are uploaded to the Web for anyone to see."
And for those who say, "Here in Washington?""Chuck Collins, a consultant contracted by PSE to be resource-conservation manager for Lake Washington district, designed the Redmond High solar program and is looking for other ways to reduce the district's energy bill.
"[There are] a bunch of fallacies of 'solar doesn't work in Washington,' " said Collins. "We're knocking those down, one by one."
Roosevelt is trying to recycle more but you run into a lot of problems in who will manage the recycling. The custodians seem overwhelmed by the work they already have without moving bags of recycling to the curb. Kids don't always empty out their cans and bottles (it's not necessary but is cleaner and lighter if they do). There is a limit on how much copying can be done. The PTSA is trying a gradual move to less paper in the First Day Packets and telling parents that most forms, in the future, will be on-line or available in the office. (If you haven't had a student in high school yet, the volume of paper that comes home in the First Day packets is unbelievable.)
What is happening (or what do you think should happen) at your school?
Comments
4 KW ought to do way more than power a concession stand. It would produce nearly all of my household's annual power needs (using the grid as a "battery"). Sure, it's a fraction of the power a school uses, but as an educational display, knowing that a house could operate on that much power would be uh, educational. The math isn't that hard to do, one would think the folks involved would have a better idea of that a 4 KW system could do.
How much do the panels on Washington Middle School produce?
Post on this site or email me at SolvayGirl1972@aol.com.
Next year parents will have the option of receiving the biweekly newsletter on line. That could save over 40,000 sheets of paper per year. The back to school packets used to go to every child, now they only go home with the youngest kid in the family, that saves about 25% of materials. (We can't go 100% online--too many families don't have access.)
Thanks...just the kind of stuff I'm looking for.
aiatopten.org/hpb/overview.cfm?ProjectID=656
The Ben Franklin Elementary School serves 450 students in kindergarten through grade six. The students are distributed within small learning communities, each including a cluster of four naturally ventilated and daylit classrooms around a multipurpose activity area. Stacked within two-story wings that extend toward the woods, these communities are integrally linked with views and access to nature beyond.
This project was chosen as an AIA Committee on the Environment Top Ten Green Project for 2006. It was submitted by Mahlum Architects, in Seattle, Washington. Additional project team members are listed on the "Process" screen.
Thanks Classof75!