2008-10-19

Solar Panels Light up New Jersey 6th Grade Classroom. By Colleen Diskin, BergenRec, October 17, 2008."The sixth grade students at Cherry Hill Elementary School are learning how all types of power plants work, and they have a head start on understanding the different energy concepts. Their classroom is its own power plant. The lights, computers and audio-visual equipment in the Discovery Lab -- as this bright, airy science classroom is called -- all run on electricity generated from solar panels on the roof of a new addition to the school... A television screen in the classroom gives the students real-time data on how many watts are being generated that hour as well as over time. Students have taken to letting out a cheer when the arrow on one of the charts points to 100 percent, indicating that the sun is at its most intense and the photo-voltaic panels are generating at top capacity... Recently, the sixth-grade students were asked to consider how many hours a day they run different appliances in their home, from TVs to waffle irons. Then they calculated how many hours those appliances could have been run off the solar energy generated by the school's solar panels since they were installed in March. A 50-inch TV could be powered for 829 hours and a laptop for 9,945 hours, they determined. Sixth-grader Matt Farrell said lessons learned in the Discovery Lab have changed his behavior at home. 'I've started turning off lights when I see them on for no reason,' Matt said."

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