Going Solar

DONNA — Being the first Rio Grande Valley school to add a solar panel to its campus, Donna High School is conserving energy and educating children simultaneously.

The TXU Energy Solar Academy partnered up with the National Energy Education Development Project. Together, TXU funded the training that NEED could provide for 40 teachers at Donna High School on Jan. 22.
Elementary Science Director Emily Anderson said that through the program, teachers learned valuable knowledge in three different areas that they can in turn pass onto their students.

“They teach what energy is, forms of energy and how energy can change,” Anderson said. “Then we learn about solar energy and how to use the solar panel.”

NEED provides teachers with multiple teaching supplies, and uses comprehensive games to help teach about energy. David Chen, Program Manager from the TXU Solar Academy, explained students would be receiving the tools to understand energy as well.

“Teachers tell us they don’t have the resources to teach about this subject, what we do is train them so they can implement this in the classroom,” Chen revealed.

The actual solar panel stands on the north side of the campus, and sends a direct flow of energy into the school. The panel will provide natural energy from the sun that the school can utilize during daily operations.

Not only is this project a good energy source, the solar panel also provides studies for science classes on campus.

“We have online access to all of the other solar panels in the state so we get their data from the output of their solar panels, so then teachers can do comparative studies,” Anderson said.

Chen said these projects and assignments will be good for the Donna district, since Texas has a large interest in conserving energy and green movement ideas.

“We need more inspired kids to go out there and come out with the next break through because both solar and wind are very expensive right now,” Chen said.

The solar panel is just the latest effort in the Rio Grande Valley to harness the power of Mother Nature, Chen said, adding that South Padre Island would also likely be the eventual site of electricity-generating wind farms. The wind farms will contain turbines which will ultimately supply power to homes along the coast.