Although there were some setbacks at the Federal level, there was plenty of good news in the world of Solar Power last year. More and more Americans are working in the solar industry, and there were plenty of installations last year in all sectors of our society. The more solar we install, the more we reduce our CO2 emissions and mitigate the effects of global warming. The infographic below is just a small sampling of some recent numbers. Enjoy and feel free to share!
Hannah Schanzer is a Park Intern at Solar One this summer, working in Stuyvesant Cove Park. She is a rising junior at Washington University in St. Louis, studying Environmental Policy and Urban Studies. She has come to the Park this summer to learn more about urban park stewardship and urban ecology.
For my summer research project, I really wanted to focus on studying how the urban setting impacts the biodiversity of the park. Stuyvesant Cove Park is situated between a gas station, a power plant, and the highway. Additionally, it is located on the former site of a cement mixing factory.
Preliminary testing revealed that the soil in some beds of the park have slightly elevated levels of lead, although not enough to cause concern with park operations (highest lead concentration in a bed was 80 ppm (parts per million), anything less than 100 ppm is considered safe for children to play in). I was curious to find out whether there was a way to “clean” the soil with the highest lead concentration without treating it with chemicals or replacing it with imported soil.
Teachers, Instructional Coaches, and Educators from across the DOE participated in the first NYC DOE Climate Summit at the NY Hall of Science in Queens, NY. The Summit was organized by the Office of Sustainability, Solar One, and the Climate and Urban Systems Partnership in an effort to profile the diversity of climate change and how it relates to a variety of school activities and curriculum.
Activities in the two Round Robin sessions included mapping visualizations, climate themed simulations and games, school climate risk assessments, data analysis, health impacts, and climate advocacy.
Watch Solar One’s Juan Parra explain how community solar makes renewable energy accessible to every New Yorker on the Spanish language television network Univision.
In the clip, you can see Juan and correspndent Berenice Gartner on the roof of an HDFC co-op building in Crown Heights. The solar installation, including the cool canopy for the panels, was installed by Brooklyn Solar Works. You can also catch a glimpse of Daroga Power‘s community solar installation, which you can sign up for on the Here Comes Solar website here.
Ansd while the segment is in Spanish, even non-Spanish speakers will be able to follow along. Congratulations to Here Comes Solar, Brooklyn Solar Works and Daroga Power on the great press for their great work!
Kids ask some pretty hard questions, and sometimes the answers are extremely fascinating, which is why the FiveThirtyEight blog, best known for political polling and sports prognostication, has started this gem of a series called Science Questions from a Toddler. Since the Solar One community is full of both teachers and parents (and teachers who are parents!), we thought this might be of interest for all sorts of reasons.
This week’s topic: Why is water so slippery?
The answer has to do a lot with just how peculiar water molecules actually are.
