We learn all the time.  Even if we walked around and tried to deliberately avoid learning anything new, it would be difficult.  Of course, a school is one of our primary learning centers and because we want people to learn about solar energy, we have a number of solar schools including a large number throughout Illinois and quite a few in Chicago.  And I do mean a formal school building with solar electricity attached to the building or on school grounds meaning “solar + school = solar school.”  But we also have a number of non-school learning centers to which solar energy is also attached.  One of these non-school “solar schools” is the Field Museum along Lake Michigan in downtown Chicago.  There is a large solar array on the roof and it generates electricity that flows into the museum to help power the lights and the heating and air conditioning systems.  And there are now plans to use the solar electricity system to help educate visitors to the museum.  That is why I call it a non-school “solar school.”

First, some background on the Field Museum itself:

Founding
The Field Museum was incorporated in the State of Illinois on September 16, 1893 as the Columbian Museum of Chicago with its purpose the “accumulation and dissemination of knowledge, and the preservation and exhibition of objects illustrating art, archaeology, science and history.” In 1905, the Museum’s name was changed to Field Museum of Natural History to honor the Museum’s first major benefactor, Marshall Field, and to better reflect its focus on the natural sciences. In 1921 the Museum moved from its original location in Jackson Park to its present site on Chicago Park District property near downtown where it is part of a lakefront Museum Campus that includes the John G. Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium. These three institutions are regarded as among the finest of their kind in the world and together attract more visits annually than any comparable site in Chicago.

Collections
The Field Museum was founded to house the biological and anthropological collections assembled for the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. These objects form the core of the Museum’s collections which have grown through world-wide expeditions, exchange, purchase, and gifts to more than twenty million specimens. The collections form the foundation of the Museum’s exhibition, research and education programs, which are further informed by a world-class natural history library of more than 250,000 volumes.

Public Learning
As an educational institution the Field Museum offers multiple opportunities for both informal and more structured public learning. Exhibits remain the primary means of informal education, but throughout its history the Museum has supplemented this approach with innovative educational programs. The Harris Loan Program, for example, begun in 1912, provides educational outreach to children, bringing artifacts, specimens, audiovisual materials, and activity kits to Chicago area schools. The Department of Education, begun in 1922, offers a changing program of classes, lectures, field trips, museum overnights and special events for families, adults and children. Professional symposia and lectures, such as the annual A. Watson Armour III Spring Symposium, presents the latest scientific results to the international scientific community as well as the public at large.

Research
The Museum’s curatorial and scientific staff in the departments of Anthropology, Biology, Geology, and Zoology conducts basic research in the fields of systematic biology and anthropology, and also has responsibility for collections management, and collaboration in public programs with the Departments of Education and Exhibits. Since its founding the Field Museum has been an international leader in evolutionary biology and paleontology, and archaeology and ethnography, and has long maintained close links, including joint teaching, students, seminars, with local universities – particularly the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Next, some information about the solar array on the roof of the Field Museum:

It is important to note that there are two sides to a place like the Field Museum.  There is the Visitor Side or the front part that visitors to the Museum see and there are the exhibits the visitors see and there are restaurants and restrooms and ticket takers and guards and a whole group of people making sure that your visit to the Museum is a positive one.  You also learn a lot about natural history and right now you would learn a lot about diamonds.  Then there is the back part of the Museum or the Administration Side.  This is where the research is taking place and new exhibits are being planned and built and it is also where the heating, air conditioning, ventilation system, lights, and the people who administer the Museum work and spend their days.  The Field Museum is more than 1.3 million square feet and just the natural gas and electricity bills exceed $2.5 million per year.  That means it is more than $200,000 per month just to heat, cool, and light the Museum.  So a few years ago, the Field agreed to a solar electricity array on its roof.  This array does save the museum a little bit of money on its electricity bill, but more importantly it is way for the Museum staff to learn about solar energy and soon to take what it has learned and share it with the visitors to the Museum.  The Field is going to use what it learned on the Administration Side of the Museum to help expand its educational outreach on the Visitor Side of the Museum.  We applaud the Field for having a fantastic museum and for helping educate the City of Chicago and much of Illinois and Indiana and Michigan and Wisconsin about solar energy.

The Field Museum has a page on the Illinois Solar Schools web site including a link to its solar electricity data.  Carter O’Brien <cobrien@fieldmuseum.org> is our contact at the Field.

http://www.illinoissolarschools.org/solar-projects/field-museum-of-natural-history-1/

In Cypress Fairbanks, the solar school project is at the Science Resource Center(SRC).  The Cypress Fairbanks ISD has a number of schools within its district including the Arnold Middle School which is directly across the street from the Science Resource Center (SRC).  The National Energy Education Development Project is administering the educational  part of the TXU Energy Solar Academy Project and has conducted one teacher training workshop at the SRC already.

TXU Energy donated the pole mounted solar electricity system and you can see the data at the following web site:

http://www.txunews.com/solaracademy/solarmap.html

The mission of the SRC shows how it serves as the science support center for the district.

Mission: The mission of the Science Resource Center is to support and enrich the science program in
Cypress-Fairbanks I.S.D. so that our graduates will achieve the goal of scientific literacy.

With a staff of seven, the SRC provides science teaching aids for every school in the Cy-Fair district.  In the spring, they stage field trips for kindergarten, first and second grades.  Volunteers are trained there to teach demos appropriate to different grade levels, often using live animals which are housed at the SRC.  “Big Events” are provided for each grade level in elementary school.  First grade receives fertilized chicken eggs to incubate and watch hatch.  Second gets painted lady butterfly caterpillars to raise and watch metamorphose into butterflies.  Third and Fifth grades go to the district nature trails behind Millsap elementary school and each school gets the use of an inflatable planetarium for one week during the year to teach fourth grade students about the universe.   To supplement the solar panel, each elementary school in the district is provided with a “NEED kit,” assembled by the SRC staff.  It contains materials for six different stations that teach about different types and sources of energy.

The SRC is located just to the East of Highway 290.  It is just a few minutes from Houston up Highway 290 and it is located in what I would call “Northwest Houston.”

Katy, Texas is a city just west of the City of Houston.  You travel west on the I-10 freeway and between 10 and 15 miles you come to the Katy exits.  The Katy Independent School District has over 50,000 students and one of its elementary schools is Morton Ranch Elementary.  Morton Ranch Elementary opened in 2008 and is a member of the TXU Energy Solar Academy and is one of a number of Texas Solar Schools.  There is a 1 kW pole mounted system behind the school (facing south of course) near the playground.  There is a live data collection system and you can see the data by clicking the icon just west of Houston at the TXU Energy Solar Academy web site:

http://www.txunews.com/solaracademy/solarmap.html

By Stephanie Ghertner

Gateway High School is a San Francisco public charter school serving approximately 450 students in grades 9-12. Designated as a California Distinguished School, Gateway was one of only two San Francisco Unified District High Schools to receive the award in 2007. In just over 10 years of existence, the school has demonstrated success in providing quality education to urban teens, and its distinguished staff deserves a great deal of credit.

One faculty member who has made a large impact is Will Parish. A modern day Renaissance man, Mr. Parish came to Gateway eight years ago, after a long and varied career as an attorney, entrepreneur, alternative energy advocate, and more. Not to mention, he’s a flight instructor and author (check out his adventure book “Around the World in a Jeep!”). As the Environmental Science teacher at Gateway, Mr. Parish brings a fresh perspective into the classroom, inspiring a new generation of leaders who will draft future environmental policies that will ultimately be responsible for saving our world.

Using innovative activities and hands-on experiences, Mr. Parish brings the topic of renewable energy out of the textbook and into the classroom. Students don’t simply read about how solar energy powers electricity; they see it first-hand. Mr. Parish and his students built a “solar charging closet,” a recharging station (and yes, it is an old-fashioned closet) where students can recharge batteries, cell-phones, iPods, and other devices using a solar-powered electricity system. The system uses solar panels to collect sunlight that is then converted to electricity stored in two large batteries outside the classroom. Once charged, the batteries are brought into the closet and connected to an inverter that provides the electricity to power up to 40 outlets in the closet. Educational AND useful. Pretty neat!

On the playground, solar activity is abundant. The “solar power house” that sits next to the basketball courts has multiple purposes, acting as both a meeting place for students and a model for energy efficiency. Within its walls, one can watch renewable energy at work – there’s even a solar thermal energy system that uses the sun to heat water! On some sunny days, the “solar snack shack” attracts students to its counter to enjoy “solar smoothies” (the blenders are run by solar electricity!) Also nearby is a 1 kilowatt solar generation system, accompanied by an online monitoring tool that provides real-time data on the system’s activity and amount of electricity generated. The photovoltaic system, donated by PG&E, was installed in Spring 2009, and will be incorporated into the environmental science curriculum this year.

Gateway’s environmental efforts have received a great deal of recognition, thanks in large part to the school’s dedication to raising environmental awareness and to the students’ enthusiasm. Recycling bins dot the halls, compost boxes – worms included – sit outside, garden boxes of edible greens and other plants rest nearby, and a student “Team Green” club organizes campus activities. There’s simply no escaping the school’s greening initiatives. And that’s a very good thing. It’s fantastic for Gateway students and families, teachers and staff, friends and visitors, the community and the planet.

At Gateway, students are exposed to demonstrations of environmental protection and renewable energy inside and outside the classroom. Whether they participate in energy generation experiments in Mr. Parish’s environmental science course or notice the solar house’s photovoltaic panels during break, Gateway students are learning important lessons about sustainability. The result is not only a product of Mr. Parish’s contagious passion for environmental education but also a testament to Gateway’s commitment to innovative approaches to academics.

by Stephanie Ghertner

Project Open Hand was founded in 1985 by Ruth Brinker, a retired meal service manager and grandmother, as a grassroots response to the nutritional needs of people with AIDS. In a San Francisco church basement, Ms. Brinker enlisted the help of friends and began preparing meals for seven people with AIDS. Today, Project Open Hand serves over 3,000 people with HIV/AIDS, in addition to seniors and homebound people living with serious illnesses or other debilitating conditions in San Francisco and Alameda counties. In an average month, Project Open Hand provides over 30,000 meals and 11,000 grocery bags to clients living with HIV/AIDS, prepares over 29,000 meals to seniors, and delivers 3,000 meals to people who are homebound with a critical illness. The group now serves more than 7,000 clients – one-thousand times the number of people first touched by Ms. Brinker’s generosity. For nearly 25 years, Project Open Hand’s partnership of volunteers, donors, and staff has provided healthy meals, groceries, nutrition counseling, and emotional support to those in need, and the groundbreaking organization continues to be a model for similar groups around the world.

The cutting-edge nature of Project Open Hand’s mission is also reflected in its progressive approach to operations. The non-profit organization is not only focused on increasing the effectiveness of its programs and services but also the efficiency of its activities. In 2005, Project Open Hand launched the Green Solutions Initiative with the objective of “greening” its facilities. The goal was two-fold: lower operating expenses and reduce environmental impact. Project Open Hand started with basic changes – increasing composting and recycling efforts, converting to energy efficient bulbs, conducting regular water pipe maintenance, and asking employees to turn off lights and computers when not in use. The result of such simple efforts? $60,000 in savings per year! Next, Project Open Hand started to upgrade its fleet of delivery vehicles, replacing 9 mile-per-gallon gas-guzzling vans with fuel-efficient, compact Scions that tripled the fuel economy. The impact? Overall fleet operating costs were reduced by 70%, and the EPA-rated fleet greenhouse gas score increased by 300%!

With its propensity for innovation, Project Open Hand demonstrated what’s good for the environment can also be very good for business. The aforementioned actions maximized economic resources and minimized environmental impact, and the community started to notice. In support of Project Open Hand’s greening efforts, PG&E donated $200,000 to install a state-of-the-art solar photovoltaic (PV) and solar thermal system in 2007. The 22kW, 34-panel solar system produces more than 30,000 kW hours of clean renewable energy each year without emitting any greenhouse gases, and the 10-panel solar thermal system is capable of heating 170,000 gallons of water per year and offsetting the emissions of almost 2 million pounds of carbon dioxide over its lifetime. Combined, the two solar systems will save Project Open Hand approximately $12,000 annually in energy costs and more than $600,000 over the life of the system. Most importantly, the savings will allow Project Open Hand to serve an additional 6,700 home-delivered meals each year.

“Thanks to PG&E, we have a clean energy system that’s functioning great,” Director of Operations Dan Shuman said. The system symbolizes the kind of forward-thinking organization that Project Open Hand is and makes the non-profit’s operations even more attractive to current and potential donors. The publicity received by the solar system has allowed Project Open Hand to secure additional grants and reach a broader audience, thus increasing its community impact.

While Project Open Hand is proud of its accomplishments, the organization recognizes that there is still more to do. The solar system can be expanded by an additional 30% to produce even more energy, motion sensors can be added to reduce electricity produced by ceiling lights, inefficient refrigerators can be replaced to minimize energy usage, and so on. Green is an ongoing process, and Project Open Hand is always looking for further support to help make these changes happen.

Project Open Hand’s Green Solutions Initiative is evidence that seemingly small behavior changes can create powerful results. The non-profit organization’s multi-faceted approach to greening their daily operations showcases the many ways that individuals and businesses can make a difference. By carefully utilizing its resources and reducing its dependence on non-renewable resources, Project Open Hand serves “meals with love” to the Bay Area community with compassion for the planet.