Deanne Johnson is a teacher at the Gold Oak Art Charter School in Placerville, California. She facilitated a grant application to PG&E’s Solar Schools Program, which funded a 1 kW pole mounted solar electricity system that has been installed at her school. There would also be a real time data collection system attached to the solar electricity or photovoltaic (PV) system so the students could compare their generation of electricity with the generation of electricity at other schools around the PG&E service territory as well as hundreds of schools around the country and a few outside the United States. There would also be teacher training for her teachers.
It seems like a “no brainer” to apply for such a grant. To the many schools reading this who did not apply for such a grant one might ask “if it is such a ‘no brainer,’ why didn’t your school apply?” Applying for grants that may or may not come through is hard work and time consuming. Much like “extra credit” school work, not everyone is willing to make such an effort. Lucky for the students at Gold Oak, Deanne Johnson and her “solar team” were willing to make such an effort. The Gold Oak solar team submitted the application and the PG&E Foundation approved the grant. The installation was completed during the summer of 2006.

A team of teachers and staff from Gold Oak have administered this project, including Principal Sylvia Shannon, District Superintendent Dick Williams, Cameron Bennett and of course Deanne Johnson. Deanne Johnson is the Solar Program Coordinator.

Gold Oak is a fourth (4th) through eighth (8th) grade school and sits in El Dorado County in eastern California,  not too far from Lake Tahoe. The staff at the school that coordinates the solar program also includes Christie Clary, who teaches 7/8 science and math, Mary Gately, who teachers 7/8 social sciences and language arts, and Carol Kouklis who teaches music. Jo Hunter is a member of the administrative staff who will also be included in the solar team.

A mural was painted on the supporting wall of the stage deck with a mural designed by the arts students combining Native American design with the solar energy theme including social studies, science, math and the visual arts. The picture below shows a small piece of the mural.

A student at the school wrote this short note explaining the purpose of the mural.

Solar Mural
By Julian
“Some of the Gold Oak students painted a solar mural in honor of the solar panel. Another reason for the mural was to help show people solar symbols through out history. The solar mural was finished on Tuesday May 23, 2006. The students were proud of their hard work to make this painting.”

Other activities surrounding this solar installation include solar thermal ovens, solar art activities, a solar fair to replace the science fair and community outreach. This has been designed to help the students understand renewable energy and help the community understand more about solar energy. This is a wonderful project being administered by this small group of enthusiastic teachers, staff people, and students who want to improve their education and their community. It is a lot of extra work and it is not required, but it is making a difference at this fantastic school sitting in the shadows of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. If you happen to be in that part of California, you might want to swing by the Gold Oak Art Charter School and check out the solar electricity system and the wonderful mural the students painted on the wall nearby. It is worth the trip. This Fall there will be a ribbon cutting; we will post the date and time on this site in case you want to stop by.

Energy Seeds is a project of the Foundation for Environmental Education. A “blog” is a web log of journal entries. This Energy Seeds blog will contain journal entries and stories about a number of projects that we have worked on over the past few years. It is intended to stimulate and catalyze new energy and environmental project ideas that build on our projects. One of the ways in which we can do that is to provide you more than just the numbers and the data from each project. This site will provide you with the background on each project, the “behind-the-scenes” stories, and the thoughts, advice and contacts for the people who were involved in each project. Often, for example, we will provide stories from a number of people from each project including the principal, the teachers, and many of the students who will describe their project from their own perspective. We are hoping that our projects will help you do your own projects, or to join us in our future projects. It is our plan to then help you to share the vision of your projects on this site as well. We are planting the first “seeds” here with the launch of this blog site and we hope you will join us.

Here are a few of our energy seeds, which we’ll share more about in future posts:

We hope this site, or at least a few project ideas herein, will encourage more people to want to harness their own piece of the sun. We hope to create a self-sustaining market place of ideas, and everyone can play a role in the team. This is why we go to such long lengths to introduce you to both the projects and the people who are responsible for them.

We know there are a number of grave predictions for the planet. Half of the experts predict an end to the natural world if we remain on our present course while the other half outline the destruction of the world economy if we make even small changes in how we generate and use energy. We believe there are less extreme options, and we hope to show you some of the opportunities available to all of us. One seed, alone, if planted well, may help change the course of our history. Harnessing the sun in a more productive manner may help us sustain the lifestyle we enjoy while also putting a little less pressure on the planet.

Though we all may not know it right now, we each have a seed to plant, and each have a seed to sow…we all don’t have to start out as expert farmers, but we all can learn and grow. Come back, and share your story with us. We look forward to hearing from you.

Glen and Alyssa