Energy Education Grows in Popularity at K-12 Schools Across Virginia

For K-12 educators, teaching concepts in energy can be a difficult task. That’s why Secure Futures has teamed up with a leading energy education group to help. As the environment becomes a hotter topic for mainstream American culture and for our nation’s young people, schools are working harder to bring sustainability into the classroom in meaningful ways.

For teachers at Lexington City Schools in the Shenandoah Valley, teaching students concepts about energy just got a lot easier and engaging.

In partnership with the National Energy Education Development (NEED) Project, Secure Futures hosted a half-day teacher training workshop at Lylburn Downing Middle School on August 9th to bring solar energy from the school’s rooftop into the classroom. Secure Futures paid all costs to provide the training and materials free of charge to the school.

As part of the training, K-12 teachers from multiple disciplines at Lexington City Schools received Solar Science Kits to educate their students about solar energy through real-life and hands-on STEM exercises. Each solar science kit includes curriculum enhancement materials and hands on learning tools – tailored to Virginia’s Standards of Learning (SOL) benchmarks.

The NEED project provides teacher training for hands-on student engagement engagement in energy education.

In October 2016, Secure Futures completed a 100-kilowatt solar array on the roof of Lylburn Downing Middle School. With the additional teacher training and a solar picnic table in the courtyard of the middle school, students at Lexington City Schools now have multiple opportunities to physically engage with the clean solar energy powering their school.

Secure Futures incorporates teacher training for solar education at every K-12 school where it has installed solar panels. The NEED Project solar teacher training workshop at Lexington City Schools is the second such program Secure Futures has offered to its educational customers. In 2016, Secure Futures and the NEED Project hosted a teacher training workshop for more than two dozen teachers from Albemarle County Public Schools.

In an age of tight school budgets when teachers dig into their own pockets to stock their classrooms, Secure Futures contributes by supplying solar science kits to its educational customers at no cost to the customer.

All of the teachers who participated in the NEED Project trainings at both Albemarle County and Lexington City schools said the workshops increased their knowledge in energy grew because of the workshop. If you also enjoy training and are looking for general teacher training then there are summer courses for teachers that you could take that will further your professional development, like this energy training workshop did.