Denver Legacy School

ASES Unveils Denver Legacy School

By Blanche Sheinkopf

More than 150 students, teachers, administrators, school board members, community members and representatives of the solar industry gathered on July 7 to attend the dedication of the newly installed 1.1-kilowatt photovoltaic system at the 2006 American Solar Energy Society Legacy School — Del Pueblo Elementary — in Denver.

The project is the sixth addition to the ASES Legacy School Program, which was established in 2001 to support solar education, solar career development and energy education in ethnically, culturally, economically and academically diverse communities. Each year a school is selected in the location of the ASES National Solar Energy Conference. Previous years’ Legacy Schools have been located in Washington, D.C.; Reno, Nev.; Austin, Texas; Portland, Ore.; and Orlando, Fla.

Partners in the 2006 program include the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, which provided major funding and supplied the 1.1-kilowatt photovoltaic system; Namaste Solar Electric Inc. along with Solar Energy International, which installed the solar system; the National Energy Education Development (NEED) project, which provided teacher training for Carla Callahan, Del Pueblo’s Legacy School teacher, as well as all related classroom curriculum materials; and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR program, which benchmarked the school so that energy usage can be measured and monitored. Fat Spaniel Technologies provided the Web-based monitoring system that enables the students to track the system’s performance in real time.

Del Pueblo, a K-5 school built in the mid-1970s near downtown Denver, is considered by many to be the center of its neighborhood community, so the solar system on the school will have a huge impact on the local population, as well as on the school’s teachers and 220 students.

Callahan, a special education teacher at Del Pueblo, said, “This is a terrific program in many ways. Students are learning so much about solar energy and energy efficiency. They are super excited about the classroom activities and the outdoor hands-on projects, and I know they’re even teaching their parents what they have learned. There’s going to be a lot of activity every day around the monitoring equipment as the students watch to see the system’s performance.”

ASES Executive Director Brad Collins pointed out that Callahan was so motivated by being chosen as the teacher in this project that she applied for grants to upgrade the school’s energy- using equipment. “She even applied for and received a grant of $100,000 from Lowe’s to retrofit the school building with 22 tubular skylights and make other improvements,” he noted, “which is the largest grant that Lowe’s has ever given. She also received two $5,000 grants and some smaller funds for the library and technology upgrades.”

As of July, Callahan had raised $200,000 in grants — “and that’s just the beginning,” she said.

On July 7 ASES and NEED hosted a one-day teacher-training program on solar energy at Del Pueblo. The 45 teachers who attended were able to participate in the Del Pueblo dedication ceremony, along with the solar installers who attended a Solar Energy International training workshop also held at the school.

Blanche Sheinkopf is chair of the ASES Legacy School Program and president of The Sheinkopf Group, an energy and education consulting firm. Contact her at blanche@thesheinkopfgroup.com.