Hands-on with solar energy
Kits part of new STEM class in Tracy
Photo by Deb Gau Tracy Area High School students Tovin Kainz, Owen Beier and Owen Maguire worked together to assemble part of a 12-volt solar panel system during a new STEM class at TAHS.
Photo by Deb Gau A completed solar kit shows the panel and solar system, which powers a light bulb. TAHS received the kits and curriculum training through a partnership of Xcel Energy and the nonprofit We Care Solar.
Photo by Deb Gau Tracy Area High School students Tovin Kainz, Owen Beier and Owen Maguire worked together to assemble part of a 12-volt solar panel system during a new STEM class at TAHS.
Photo by Deb Gau A completed solar kit shows the panel and solar system, which powers a light bulb. TAHS received the kits and curriculum training through a partnership of Xcel Energy and the nonprofit We Care Solar.
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TRACY -- Students at Tracy Area High School were getting started with a new hands-on project Tuesday.
Around Amy Larsen's classroom, groups of students unpacked blue suitcases filled with parts like a metal chassis, wires, connectors and a 12-volt solar panel.
Using an illustrated manual, students were tasked with putting the solar systems together. In one of the lab groups, Triston Whitehorse, Jack Willhite and Khole Radke had gotten a few steps into the assembly process.
"It's wires now," Willhite said, after looking at the manual. "We'll need all the yellow wires."
The solar panel project was part of a new STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) elective class being offered at TAHS. Larsen said students in grades 10-12 will learn about a variety of STEM topics.
"We're just trying to expose them to something new," Larsen said.
The class's solar panel project was something that came together through a partnership between Xcel Energy, a nonprofit called We Care Solar, and the city of Tracy. Larsen said the school was contacted about the opportunity by Tracy Community Development Director Tom Dobson. Xcel and We Care Solar had teamed up to provide solar education kits at Minnesota schools in areas served by Xcel.
"(TAHS) got all 10 of these kits for free," Larsen said.
This summer, the Xcel Energy Foundation contributed $10,000 to the Tracy Area Community Foundation to help expand STEM education.
We Care Solar is a nonprofit that provides portable solar power kits to help health care workers in parts of the world without reliable electricity. We Care Solar also provides "solar suitcase" kits to help teach students about how solar energy works, and how it can be applied in the real world.
The program trains teachers on a science curriculum that goes along with the kits, Larsen said.
In August, the Xcel Signature Solar Solutionaries teacher training was held at St. Cloud State University. In addition to Tracy Area High School, teachers from Becker, New London-Spicer, and St. Cloud Schools took part in the training session.
As part of the training, Larsen learned how to assemble the same kind of solar kit that students were working on Tuesday. She showed a finished kit, which uses a solar panel to charge up a battery that powers a light bulb.
As students worked on the solar panels Tuesday, Larsen said, "It will take you a couple, three days to build."
For the most part, the kit instructions were easy to follow, students said.
"It's pretty good," student Owen Beier said. The diagrams in the manual helped, he said.
Larsen said this is the first year that the STEM class is being offered at TAHS. She plans on working with students on a variety of technology and engineering-related projects. She said students in this semester's STEM elective will later disassemble the solar kits for future classes to use.