October 15, 2014 at 4:57 p.m.
Three Lakes School District, WPS cement SolarWise for Schools partnership
Three Lakes School District, WPS cement SolarWise for Schools partnership
It's been a busy beginning of the school year for the district. In September, the school showed off its new Fab Lab - the first MIT-chartered lab in a K-12 school system in Wisconsin and only the sixth such lab in the entire state - to state and local officials.
That was followed by the dedication ceremony Tuesday, which highlighted another achievement for the district.
Three Lakes is the 53rd high school to receive the WPS SolarWise electric rooftop system and renewable energy curriculum.
The panels will provide energy savings to the district, and a unique learning opportunity for students.
Those opportunities were the focus of the many speeches made during the ceremony.
Principal Dr. William Greb began the ceremony by thanking WPS for the panels and encouraging his students to take full advantage of the opportunities now presented to them.
"We are here to thank the Wisconsin Public Service Community Foundation for its extremely gracious donation. We now have a fully operational set of solar energy panels on the roof and we're here this morning to express our gratitude. These are exciting times for us," Greb told his students.
"They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If that's true then I'm going to submit to you that a hands-on demonstration followed up by design, reverse engineering, experimentation, creation and presentation is absolutely priceless in the realm of education. Really, that's precisely the direction the district is headed right now."
"It's one thing to go online or to draw information from a textbook in terms of learning," Greb continued.
"It's an entirely different experience for you students when you can see it, when you can touch it and generate actual data. Projects such as the SolarWise for Schools bring education home for us ... and will truly give you a significant advantage toward your future."
hree Lakes School Board Vice President Mike Kwaterski echoed many of Greb's statements by thanking WPS and explaining to students why the program is so important to their future.
"This is a huge day for the Three Lakes district," he said. "It was probably 30 years ago ... that I was you. If I compare where I was to where you are here today, you've got an amazing advantage over what we had 30 years ago. The amount of hands-on instruction that this district continues to offer and provide for you is amazing ... and I think some big things are going to happen in this district if we continue on the path that we're on. I think some of the things you can accomplish can be amazing. ... This is really exciting stuff."
Superintendent Dr. George Karling told the students they are now part of a school that is focused on getting them ready for the next stage in life, whether that be the workforce or post-secondary education to further prepare to enter the workforce. He said it's time for the students to begin thinking about their futures.
"We're becoming a career-focus school. We feel that's important, focusing on careers for our students," he said. "To do that, we need to engage our students and offer hands-on opportunities for learning. ... We're becoming polytechnic. We are looking at the Three Lakes district becoming the first polytechnic K-12 in the state of Wisconsin ... and that means a lot more opportunities for our students to learn and succeed."
WPS officials also took the stage to speak about the opportunities created by the new solar panels. John Wilde, the treasurer of the community foundation board and the vice president of tax strategy and services for the Integrys Energy Group, told the students WPS works hard to provide extensive curriculum to its SolarWise districts. It's the students' job to take advantage of that curriculum, he noted.
"Your school now has a working solar electric system and will be provided with the foundation's extensive 31 lesson SolarWise renewable energy curriculum. Now, it's your job to take advantage of that," he told the students.
"It's an opportunity that you'll hopefully participate in and learn and grow from."
After the speeches, the students were invited to participate in a WPS Energy Fair being held in the gymnasium. WPS community relations leader Leah Van Zile said the fair is used to help get the students excited about learning - and about the possibility of working in the energy industry.
"In conjunction with our dedication ceremony, we bring to the students an energy fair which has about 15 different booths highlighting different topics on energy - renewable energy, environmental concerns, an electric safety demonstration and even a booth on careers. We just want to bring to the forefront different types of energy and energy-related topics," she said.
"We really want the students to open their eyes and their minds to potential in the field of energy while also teaching them about safety and other aspects as it relates to renewable energy and just energy in general."
For their part, the students shared the faculty's enthusiasm for the new solar panels. Seniors Anya Fairchild and Kylie Gorney said they are looking forward to taking advantage of the new learning opportunities presented to them by the solar panels.
"(The panels) will give us real-time data. Instead of going on the Internet and seeing what some random solar panels across the country are doing, we can track the progress of our very own solar panels and that's very exciting," Gorney said.
"They're also helping us save the planet. They reduce pollution, save natural resources and save us energy ... so our future is looking bright."
"Our school decided to be a leader in the community and decided to step forward and make a difference through the installation of the solar panels," Fairchild added.
"This will help us reduce our carbon footprint and allow us to use renewable sunlight to power our school while giving us the chance to use real-time data from the panels in our education."
Marcus Nesemann may be reached at [email protected].
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