solar for east

September 8, 2019December 19, 2020

September 11th, 2019

Investigation:

I have pretty much always been interested in the environment and when I heard about how a few of my students in my grade that started a student-led group with aims to put solar panels on our school roof little over two years ago I was immediately interested in joining. a little more than a year ago, the leader of the group, Hemal Arora, decided to, I guess you could say, fire many of the students already involved as they were not interested or passionate enough to work and probably joined because they wanted their resumes to look good. He wanted to find hardworking and passionate students who would be willing to work towards this goal and I was soon accepted into the group.

September 20th, 2019

Preparation:

I will be continuing with this group and hopefully will be able to put more solar panels on our school roof. In today’s session, we talked about our goals of:

100 Panels installed by January 2019
Hand over the project completely by June 2020
Reach 130 panels funded by June 2020
Fundraise with the middle school (Event) and junior school (Month of Giving) – High School Presentation ( – Teacher Departments)

We have the money for about 80+ panels right now and 25 are already installed with about 60 or so that we have right now in stock. However, we just learned that not all of the money may not go to the solar panels and some may need to go for the inverters (the technology that converts DC to AC (the electricity current we use)). The inverter will be replaced by a new brand by our vendor (who helps set up the solar panels) and some support structures will hopefully be ordered by September. We are planning for an installation in January (we cannot do it earlier because the foundation group (which we work together with) will have a solar specific appeal that will go out in November, more for new parents). We also work with the facilities team at UWCSEA and they want to get a clearer picture of the structure and layout of the panels.

Today we got a surprise that we are actually loaning panels from Dover (the other campus of UWCSEA) and we didn’t know that previously. In addition, we might have a solar trip to India to visit a factory and learn more about solar panels, but this is more of a side project. One of our main issues to promoting ourselves and being visible in our school community so we need to work on advertising ourselves because it definitely improves the chance that someone will donate. Since this is a new year we might do some sort of refresh on videos, presentations and our website, but we’ve also missed important opportunities such as UWC day or a whole High School Assembly so we need to find opportunities as well. This might include—Screening of a certain film (by mother of two children in the school – she has a film on a vegetarian diet), 22nd April 2020 Earth Day, fundraiser – ‘Let us be heroes.com’, family festival.

One of our members discussed some of the ethics of this project. In a way, we are sort of helping the school without them realising it or at the very least not in a way that they are involved. We are saving money for them by putting up solar panels and we are all doing this with some support of the foundation and facilities but not from the actual board of directors and the board of UWC worldwide. It’s like we are a group raising money for solar panels for another person house that we have connections do but ultimately it is their house that is benefiting because they save money. Since the school is a non-profit, it could be that a lot of this saved money could go to waste by spending on unnecessary renovations or salaries even and not back into the solar program.

#LO4

#LO7

October 11th, 2019:

Preparation:

During these past few weeks, I have attended some meetings with some of Solar For East members and have written emails to each of the heads of grades in primary (elementary) school. I had a meeting with Ms Markey, the head of primary school who encouraged us to continue our class giving program next year (starting in January of 2020). We had this class giving program last year which allowed us to raise money for 17 panels. The class giving program, depending on every class, is a program in which students can donate money (usually about two dollars) for…(need more information).

We’ve got several small, side along, projects and we are trying to hand off the project to new and younger members. These projects include some college events, smaller installation events, fundraising push for the UWC Foundation and lots more.

#LO4

October 24th, 2019:

Action and Reflection:

Today, I installed a lot of solar panels during our October Break with a few of our Solar For East members and a volunteer. This wasn’t an event and instead, we did this so that we could actually set up the inverter and actually start producing energy because before today, we haven’t actually made a difference, it is only today when there are enough solar panels, that we can begin producing energy. Right now we have installed 82 panels but we have lots more in stock which we will either install soon or during an installation event with the school. Through installing panels, I guess I have developed the skill of both patience and the need for precision and accuracy because if one panel is off, down the line, that error will be great. Also, I have developed my skills in installing solar panels, which isn’t very hard but is still a relatively new skill.

Climate change is a global problem is the biggest environmental issue that we face today and perhaps even the biggest threat right now to us. Taking individual action doesn’t contribute all that much. Me taking the bus instead of the car or even putting solar panels on my roof will, of course, make a difference but in the grand scheme of things I and the vast issue that climate change looms over us, it doesn’t really help. However, if we all do individual action, collectively we make a difference. The plane will still fly even if I don’t take it but if we all try to reduce our air travel, then there will be less demand for flights and thus fewer carbon emissions. So, the solar project doesn’t make a huge difference (but still quite a lot) but it is the inspiration that is the most important in the issue. One of our mottos is to light up a brighter future and create a spark in people’s imaginations. What we have been doing is getting our school community involved, not just a facilities team doing all the work without the community knowing. When children and even adults see the work they have contributed they get inspired and are more likely to be more eco-friendly and environmentally conscious. One good example that I have is the Tesla. A few summers ago, my family tried a Tesla, we got inspired to hire a Tesla over the summer and now we only hire electric cars when we go back to Sweden. this has inspired many of our family members who some have got a Tesla and others are thinking of the same. It’s like the smartphone. At first not many had one but now almost everyone does. It is the inspiration and passing on of ideas that creates change not just individual action.

#LO4, #LO6

Demonstration:

November 29th, 2019

Today, we have officially been saving the environment. Now the system is up and running and we are currently offsetting (although very little but still a considerable amount) our carbon through solar power. Our plan is to get the section of the roof done before we graduate with the plan of handing off the project to new students which is an important task that needs doing. We can currently see how much power output we are getting from the solar panels and today is sort of a historic moment.

This week and next week, I have participated in a few presentations and workshops with grade 3s (and we are planning to do the rest of Junior school later on this year and next year) in order for them to get a hands-on approach and really engage themselves in the issue of climate change and the prospect of solar energy. It has been going really well and I have been the communications liaison, contacting and writing emails to the heads of grades and teachers so we can make these workshops happen. The idea is that later on, we will implement our class giving program again. This program (which we did last year) was a combination of 30 days of kindness (donate 2 dollars for every act of kindness a student acts) and raising funds together with a class to “adopt” a solar panel. This worked really well last year where we got 17 panels which were great but we hope for more next year. It is also a great learning opportunity for the students who are all in primary school.

January 24th, 2020

For the past few weeks, we have been planning presentations for Grade 5, 2 and Grade 1, created workshops and presenting to grade 1s as well as creating a recruitment process for Grade 9 and 10.

We’ve also been discussing with the Head of Sustainability to do workshops with middle school, perhaps in the SEED program, which is a program that every middle school class does for a few weeks that involves sustainability. During this meeting today, we have also been discussing about making solar for east a college service while still allowing our privileges (in the sense that we are not a normal service and require hardworking and committed members in our group as service at this school can sometimes lead to forced applications to different service groups so some may not be as interested or as hardworking or focused). We’ve been going in the dark and been in secrecy a bit and now the Head of Facilities may be leaving so we may have to be a service to ensure our survival at our school and that future generations of students can help make our school more green in terms of energy usage.

This is important because we are only Grade 11s and we need new students that can take over. In a way, I have been a part of the first generation of solar for east and it has been an amazing opportunity. But to ensure that we can install more solar panels, we are going to have to make our group into a service and hope that people will continue our work that has been done. As a team, we have decided to finish by the end of grade 12, our section of the roof.

I have been coordinating a lot with teachers and heads of grades about meetings and presentations and so far it has been quite hectic but definitely rewarding as this project is something I am quite interested in.

February 28th, 2020

Over the past few weeks, I have had more presentations with Grade 5 and planning soon with K2 and Grade 2 in March. We have also accepted our new recruits which are exciting and mean a bit less workload for us. It has been a bit tough trying to communicate with a few heads of grades but mostly it is working great. We have been doing a lot of other products that I haven’t been entirely aware of such as beginning with the Middle school presentations, working with the parent’s association, the Foundation and some promotional videos. We are in the process of handing off some of the work to the new recruits.

Through Solar for East, I have definitely been able to improve my management and communication skills both when it comes to emails and talking to a variety of age groups from adults to the youngest of school children. These are important skills later on in life and it has been a very valuable experience and journey for me. It has also been a challenging and productive journey with lots of work to be done and have been done. I consider myself quite a sentimental person and is nostalgic and attaches sentimental value to the most mundane objects and experiences one can imagine. However, we are almost nearing to the end, and for me, it is difficult to let things go especially something big like Solar For East and that will be very tough for me. I will still continue to work for a few months but already, especially after the Installation over the October break and thinking about the new recruits, I am already sad and am longing for the past. But of course, one has to let go of the past and move forward. Dwelling in the past and trying to repeat it is not the best solution. Anyways, Solar For East has been absolutely phenomenal and I just wish I had spent more time there. The more I am reflecting the more nostalgic I am getting so I will stop here for now.

#LO1, #LO4

April 22nd, 2020

We are living in quite a unique time right now because of the COVID-19 situation and almost everyone around the world have had and are having similar experiences with COVID-19 such as working from home, school closures, lockdowns, social distancing and many other methods. In Singapore, we have had almost a complete lockdown where schools are shut down, non-essential business are closed, people working from home, mandatory mask-wearing outside and when outside, only for much-needed exercise and buying groceries. This, of course, will affect the organisation and our service in Solar For East but despite the Circuit Breaker (that is the name of the lockdown here in Singapore which was extended to June the first from May the 4th), we still do some of the work that we still can.

We have some technical meetings where we have introduced the new recruits about the solar system on the roof and how it works and a few of the intricacies of how we work as a team. I have also been working on a United World Stories Video where we have sent a video the UWC community on tips on sustainability (many other services are doing similar things so we are focusing on energy-saving tips) during the Circut breaker period. We are also working on to build our portfolio and organising our folders which is really messy! We are are also going to have a meeting with the PA (parents association) to thank them or their continued help with our project and to also give them more info on how our project is going. We have been doing a lot with meetings online for the past few weeks and it is going okay, but of course, it is difficult to raise money for the solar panels but we are still planning for an installation in June we hope, but that may be difficult due to the pandemic.

#LO4

14th June 2020

Since last time, my main contribution has been to help the new recruits with their new plans to integrate solar and sustainability learning in High School classes, mainly helping those in the DT and maths department. I haven’t made a significant contribution to the website, but some of us in the team are building a website similar to that of other services we have. Solar For East, as I have mentioned before has been an amazing experience and I will definitely help and contribute next year. Unlike in many other activities, are productive hasn’t really gone down and we have achieved a lot. The only difficult is that fact that we can have a final installation with the junior school classes this year. I feel like I have contributed a lot to the team and to the sustainability to our school, and inspiring others to continue the journey. Our school uses a lot of energy so offsetting some other energy through the use of solar power will make quite a huge difference. Most of the energy at the school comes from the air conditioning which for many buildings is the biggest proportion of energy consumption. Solar For East really has a large impact on the local scale, and although small, in some ways global as we will use less natural gas, the main energy source here in Singapore (which is at least better than coal or oil). So, I will continue this experience until next year and I am proud and grateful for contributing to this wonderful mission that we have in Solar For East.

#LO4, #LO6

December 2020,

My time at Solar for East is nearing an end. We have done a lot this year such as the 100 panels thank you video, discussing alternative ways to get donations such as sponsorship of electricity usage rather than panels, and most importantly handing over the leadership to the new team. This is definitely one of the activities or service that I will miss the most because of two very big reasons. Firstly, I have made great friendships through the Solar For East group, to the point that my best friends are in the Solar For East old team. Before I joined I didn’t know any of them, but as time grew on, we became really close. It has been such an amazing time working with everyone and I appreciate every moment. Secondly, it is the service with the most visual impact and something I am very passionate about. I really hope that I will be able to contribute to something of this scale in the future and honestly, I will miss so much of everything of my time here. I wish that I did a bit more this year but other than that the only regret is just to have more time with the group and with the solar initiative aim. This is an experience I will never forget.

#LO4

February 23, 2019

Solar For East

SFE Overview Poster-1hjqjzk I have been a part of a student-led group called Solar for East for almost two years. This project was started by Hemal in Grade 8-9 and I soon joined him with 6 other members: Adi, Brooke, Akshat, David, Devin and Issy. After being rejected by the board of finance to being accepted to success and failures, we finally were able to install our first solar pannels.

This installation event that we had (23rd Feburary, 2019) was the culmination of a two-year-long journey full of hard work and dedication, it was inspiring to see so much support from our very own East community, which made this entire experience all the more gratifying. We wondered to our selves why the community should support solar for east? Everyone here in our community contributing to the carbon emissions our world is emitting at this very moment. Lights, transportation, air condition, our phones and our laptops, basically all of our basic necessities, all need electricity to function. Modern society is literally dependent on our ability to convert energy into its various useful forms. However, the common source of this electricity is causing rising sea levels, droughts and extreme weather changes.

But what many people do not realise is that these changes are not only melting the homes of polar bears, but humans, our own kind, are losing their habitats as well. By 2050 the UN estimates there to be 250 million climate refugees. To put it into perspective, this is nearly the entire population of Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world.

This journey took us back to two years ago, when we were all in middle school with our green shirts on. Mr Thomas, who is the head of the facilities for both Dover and East, gave us a presentation and subsequent tour about our school’s facilities.

We learned about sustainability when we were appalled to hear that Singapore and most other countries heavily relied on the burning of fossil fuels for energy. In fact, we rank as the 26th worst country in terms of emissions per capita. And the thought of normal people like me contributing to carbon emissions by simply switching on the lights at home horrified me .

Quickly, we realised that we needed to change the practices of our own community. Despite our sustainable campus, our school was still responsible for the emission of 2,500,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide annually due to our electricity consumption alone.

With our common passion, we joined forces and took inspiration from Dover’s solar program to launch East’s very own renewable energy project back in May of 2017. We met with the facilities department and worked with the solar energy company helping us today to source the very panels that we will be installing. This process was very new to us, but we were happy to even be in the same room as the adults, and actually, be driving the whole process ourselves. In fact, throughout our work, Mr Thomas often told us that without our efforts, no teacher or parent would be taking on the project to make it a reality.

We worked long nights with this mindset until our proposal to the Board in November of 2017. Despite the fact that we were students, we needed to research every aspect of our system to the fine details in order to get it approved for funding by the school. It was a really nerve-wracking experience given our age, but we were all very passionate about the project, and we had done our homework. Regardless, during the presentation, we were questioned intensely like any other project that may come to the board’s table. In our preparation, we learned about various financial calculations, solar energy and its applicability in Singapore, how to recycle solar panels after 25 years and which inverters to use. To summarise, quite a lot of thinking had to go into it.

With our fingers crossed, we waited until January of 2018, more than a year ago, when we were told that we had been approved and our project had been given the go-ahead. Our proposal to the school involved installing 1130 panels on our school’s roofs, and to support these installations we needed the support of all of you – members of our community who take responsibility for our climate and environment. This period between last January and Today has been incredibly rewarding as we were given the opportunity to do presentations to many students, teachers and parents of our school – Teaching them about solar, and inspiring them to join us in our work.

Being among countries with some of the highest carbon emissions per capita in the world, Singapore has a staggering average of 10.3 metric tons annually per person. This is contributing to the fact that Singapore has been impacted from climate change too. And due to our continual consumption of energy, the problem is getting worse. The average temperature in Singapore has risen from 26.6 degrees to 27.7 degrees in 2014, and there has been an increase in average rainfall in recent years. That is why it is so important that all of you are helping change one of the most pressing issues we are faced with today.

The East campus alone consumes 5,975 mW hours of electricity per year. With our goal of 1,130 panels, we would be able to save 7% of our annual energy expenditure, which is over 173,625 kgs of carbon. The system would be capable of powering 1.4x the entire 15-floor boarding house throughout its lifetime of 25 years, and in total, it will save the emissions of just about 4 Million kg of CO2 where each dollar donated to the initiative can save 6 kilograms of carbon. To put this in perspective, that’s equivalent to about the mass of 53,333 Mr. Thomases.

Every single person here has the potential to make an extremely significant difference, with even a single panel saving 3 and a half tonnes of CO2 from being emitted.And to be able to physically see the amount of people in front of us now who have contributed and are just as passionate as us about this issue is truly a dream come true, when at the age of 14, it seemed like making a difference was so far away.

The ‘tagline’ of our project is ‘lighting up classrooms and imaginations’ which we feel links perfectly with UWC’s mission which is to use education to foster a sustainable future. This is why we value influencing the mindsets of those around us just as much as we value monetary contributions from the school. We believe that the solution to the climate crisis lies between the ears of those around us and this is why we give presentations to anyone in our school that would like to host us. Starting off as middle schoolers with no real knowledge about solar energy, to installing these panels with you today, has taught us that no matter what age you may be, your ideas, with enough effort, can become real solutions to today’s problems. Some of our biggest supporters, such as the Parents association have been instrumental to helping us reach this long-awaited day. Their support in donating 26 entire panels has taken us strides further in achieving our goals.

As well as this, we aimed to get students involved in new activities through the 30 days for 30 dollars challenge. Students took on an activity; swimming, running, or playing the piano, every day for 30 days, and earned a dollar each day for completion of these activities. Altogether, this challenge raised enough money for a panel each for the Grade 4 classes involved, and was a great opportunity for the students to have a direct impact on the donations raised. We have recently established a class donation portal where class parents or teachers can organise for their class to sponsor a solar panel as a class, and if you think your group is up for the challenge, reach out to us!

OSCAR

SLIDE 12:

Now, after all of this hard work we have raised funds for our first 65 panels and will installed 30 during the event. The rest of these panels will be installed by our generous class donors – the majority from the primary school – to provide them with a powerful educational experience and let the system act as an open classroom for generations to come. For our next installation, we set our sights on funding 100 whole panels and coming back together to expand our system. On the wider scale of things, our project will eventually require funding for 1065 more panels to reach our ultimate goal, but this will take longer than the time that we graduate in – 2 years – and so we are excited to hand on the project to students from junior and middle school in a couple of short years.

The event was a massive success, we had loads of people coming, about 100 when we initially planned for 20. We had interesting presentations during the day, and everyone was always entertained. We had great refreshments and I had interesting conversations with donors and those who participated. Even Mr. Alchin (the head of high school), as well as Graham Silverthorne (head of campus), were there.