Jake Browning
reporter@thefranklinpress.com
Mountain View Intermediate School could be the first of many Macon County schools to partially provide its own power with a new solar energy station.
Earlier this year, Macon County Schools STEM coordinator Jennifer Love secured the backing of NC Green Power, a non-profit that funds efforts to increase the use of renewable energy throughout North Carolina.
The organization’s Solar+Schools initiative has established solar energy stations at 32 schools since 2015 and will add 10 more by the end of 2020, extending its reach to 33 of North Carolina’s 100 counties.
NC Green Power marketing communications director Katie Lebrato said that schools with solar stations are capable of providing more immersive STEM education that helps children understand what it’s like to work in modern engineering.
“Some of the best stories that we’ve heard are from schools where their stations get the chance to serve entire communities,” Lebrato said. “It changes entire career paths for students who get to work with it.”
In addition to providing Mountain View with enough electricity to offset annual power bills by about $800 per year, the station would be equipped with weather forecasting technology that would allow local residents to track the weather online. NC Green Power would also provide for curriculum and teacher training for education relevant to the science behind solar power.
Love said the program would make a positive impact on how all Macon County teachers approach STEM subjects.
“It’s teaching both teachers and students how to collect and use data,” Love said. “It’s a whole curriculum based on weather and energy that we would use all year.”
NC Green Power will provide up to $27,000 for installation of the solar array, providing teacher training, securing STEM curriculum materials and covering miscellaneous costs.
Macon County Schools will need to raise $6,000 of its own to secure the grant funding. Love received permission to fundraise if Mountain View was selected for the program in January when she brought the project before the Macon County Board of Education, where school board officials voiced support for the project.
“It’s an outstanding opportunity for the education of our students as well as a chance to reduce our utility bills and do our part to protect our planet,” superintendent Chris Baldwin said.
The Solar+Schools program has rapidly expanded from four schools per year to 10 in its first five years of operation, and Lebrato said that the organization’s goal is to keep growing the program every year until there’s a solar station in every county. Love said that if everything goes as planned, Mountain View may just be the first in a long line of solar stations that take Macon County STEM education to the next level.
“We have so many schools here that have the need and that have the perfect space to accommodate a station,” Love said. “I’d love to see us do even more down the road.”
For more information on the Solar+ Schools program or to donate to the project at Mountain View Intermediate School, go online to donate.ncgreenpower.org/team/301302.