Social Impact through Sustainable Solar Design: Much More than a Course California Higher Education Sustainability Conference Best Practice Award Winner for Sustainability in Academics, STEM June 27, 2016, CSU Fullerton Professors Erik Helgren and Karina Garbesi California State University, East Bay (CSUEB)

CONCEPT Leverage a university course into a local and global community engagement project to promote sustainability, social justice, and under-represented groups in STEM. community focused on improving lives with solar energy.

Cross-disciplinary CSUEB Faculty (Environmental Studies and Physics) HOW? Cr eate a multi-generational learning community focused on improving lives with solar energy. CSUEB Students Upper Division GE Teachers in Local Low-Income Schools Middle and High School Students

Teachers Completing Solar Suitcase Professional Development Workshop (Summer 2015) Jenny Dawson Cesar Chavez Middle School, Hayward, CA Ian Fry Tennyson High School, Hayward, CA

Enabled by Broad Partnership Leadership Project Leads CSUEB Faculty: – Karina Garbesi (Envt. St.) – Erik Helgren (Physics) We Care Solar (Non-profit) – Hal Aronson (Dir of Technology and Education

Parter: We Care Solar wecaresolar.org Founded in 2010 by Laura Stachel M.D. and her husband Dr. Hal Aronson. The first winner of the United Nation’s “Powering the Future We Want” Award (2015) The Yellow Suitcase: We Care Solar provides health facilities in areas without reliable electricity with highly efficient solar energy systems to power medical lighting, mobile communication and essential medical devices Now in 30 of the world’s poorest counties. We Share Solar Blue suitcase is the educational outreach offshoot!

Hayward Promise Neighborhood (HPN) Carolyn Nelson, Principle Investigator Alan Young, Director Campus-Community Partnership led by California State University East Bay $25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education residents, colleges, government agencies, businesses, and non-profit organizations. 6 schools within the Hayward Unified School District: 80% of students qualify free or reduced lunch program 60% Latino, 14% African American Goal: Break inter-generational poverty in the HPN Neighborhood

A Modest Set of Teaching Objectives! Integrate Sustainability, Social Justice, and Community Engagement in the Classroom 1.Teach solar energy design hands-on 2.Motivate STEM learning in non-STEM, under- represented student groups 3.Engage students as local and global citizens 4.Inspire altruism 5.Inspire the next generations of solar energy scientists, engineers, teachers, and entrepreneurs for the nation’s fastest growing industry 6.Include diversity of voices in that industry

Could this Approach Affect Women’s Participation in STEM? In a NYT Opinion Piece, Lisa Nilsson questioned:NYT Opinion Piece – Why are there still so few female engineers? Hypothesized: – that “if the content of the work itself is made more societally meaningful, women will enroll in droves.” We thought….our course could test that! Lina NilssonLina Nilsson (Ph.D. Biomedical Engineering): Innovation Director at the Blum Center for Developing Economies at the University of California, Berkeley. (NYT, April 27, 2015)

DUAL TEACHING PHILOSOPHIES EMBEDDED: Inspiring through Altruism Learning by Doing, Teaching, and Sharing

Inspiring Through Altruism (maintaining a positive message) We Care Solar 7 out of 10 Sub-Saharan Africans have no access to electricity 30% of health centers and primary schools have no electricity Students start the class learning about energy poverty, its magnitude and consequences – But the message is introduced by social entrepreneurs successfully combatting the problem (Garbesi/Aronson) – And the students themselves are engaged as change agents through the class

Learning by Doing All STEM Concepts Supported by Hands-On Learning Build, test, install, and troubleshoot the Solar Suitcase Expand its lighting system Learn underlying STEM concepts – Electric circuit theory – PV science and performance – Solar site assessment – Use tools and electronic measurement equipment Design new systems for schools, orphanages and refuge centers around the world We Share Solar Suitcase Rugged off-grid solar power system for schools and orphanages 2011 Tech Award For Work Benefiting Humanity

CSUEB Students Learning by Doing

Working together in Physics Lab

Building

The light bulb turns on!

Testing

Trouble-shooting

Building a Mock Rooftop

Using tools!

and install the systems

IN PROMISE NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOLS Learning by Teaching and Sharing

Mentoring 7 th and 8 th graders… CSUEB Student Solar Ambassador Tiffany Dong Helps Cesar Chavez Middle School 7 th Graders

…in the afterschool Solar Club… CSUEB Student Solar Ambassador Hugo Gregoire helps Cesar Chavez Middle School 7 th Graders

…in class and outdoors… Teach Rainbow Lobo with her Winton Middle School 7 th graders and CSUEB Solar Ambassadors, Jacki Ortiz and Justine Cuevas. Teach Jenny Dawson, Cesar Chavez Middle School, tests Solar Suitcases with some of her students, supervised by her daughter.

...inspired our students… CSUEB Student Solar Ambassador Yan Li helps Cesar Chavez Middle School 7 th Graders

…and energized the kids! (100% attendance, 100% focus, 8 weeks, afterschool!) CSUEB Student Solar Ambassador Tiffany Dong helps VIDEO VIDEO OF KIDS IN ACTION

CHILDREN IN SCHOOLS AND ORPHANAGES IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD Ultimate inspiration for all of the students was helping the world’s neediest kids:

The Solar Suitcases are quality assured, delivered and installed by partners working in host countries. Solar Suitcase arriving at a school in Machakos County, Kenya

…often to entire communities as schools double as community centers

…sending a message of caring

Providing light for learning and teacher preparation… WSS Suitcase lights school and community center in Kibera Slum, Nairobi, Kenya

…and for safety and community engagement. Solar Suitcase provides safety lighting in New Hope Orphanage in Uganda

RESULTS Working actively as agents of social change and environmental preservation, while engaged in hands-on STEM-learning, lit students on fire!

Evidence of the Impact on CSUEB Students 1.One class project was required, yet >40% of the class did 2 or more projects, at their own request! 2.Most significant: the students refused to stop – Created Solar Power Club (>1/3 of class) – Continued volunteer teaching in schools, public and private demonstrations (15 events, W16 – present) – Trained and volunteered on large solar installations (10 person-installs) 2 Nicaragua solar water pumping / irrigation 8 grid-connected low-income in Bay Area and Clearlake

They Refused to Stop! (pursued further education/action on their own) Solar Power Club members with Prof. Helgren after successfully completing a 5kW installation at the Pomo Indian Reservation in Clearlake, California, with Grid Alternatives.

Impact on Women in STEM (the ‘Nilsson Effect’) Whereas women were under-represented in the class – Only 43% of class was female, – While 65% of CSUEB undergraduates are female Women were over represented in the Solar Club – 87.5% (7/8) of the people who became active in Solar Club are women – Moreover, women 6/7 are non-STEM majors Conclusion: Improving the lives of those in need galvanized women, non-STEM students

Program Leverage Pilot Program (CSUEB and in 4 local classrooms) – 24 Cal State East Bay students – 80 students in local underserved middle and high schools 20 Solar Suitcases in 20 schools and orphanages – 2000 students per year in Kenya We’d like to SHARE this curriculum with other campuses!

Thank you! To CHESC for Best Practice Award, for Sustainability in Academics, STEM To our Funders At Cal State East Bay o President Leroy Morishita o Faculty Innovation in Instruction Grant o College Grant (CLASS) Pacific Gas & Electric Co. Contacts us: