Solar for schools
Four St. Albert and Morinville schools will have free solar panels on their roofs when they are built courtesy of the province.
Education Minister David Eggen said Wednesday that the province would provide about $9 million to add solar panels to 36 school projects that were now in the planning or design stages.
Solar on schools was one of the recommendations from students in a recent report from the Alberta Council for Environmental Education, said Eggen, speaking at Calgary's Sir John A. Macdonald School, which has 40 solar panels on its roof.
"We are listening to our students who have told us clearly that they want to be leaders on climate change issues."
Each school will get $250,000 to $750,000 under the voluntary initiative to install panels and create educational opportunities using them, such as an app that tracks the potential impacts of solar power on greenhouse gases, Eggen said. There will also be a committee to evaluate the impact of the panels.
Joseph M. Demko, Vincent J. Maloney, St. Kateri Tekakwitha Academy and the unnamed new Sturgeon School Division school in Morinville will all get panels under the program, documents from the province suggest.
These panels will make a great addition to Demko School and help teach students that they have a role to play in climate change, said St. Albert Public board spokesperson Paula Power.
"Anything we can do to reduce our carbon footprint is a great thing."
Sturgeon School Division superintendent MichÈle Dick said this was an exciting initiative, and noted how solar panels were a good match for the board's new school, which had been designed as environmentally friendly.
Greater St. Albert Catholic trustees will discuss this announcement Monday, said superintendent David Keohane.
"This certainly would come as welcome news," he said, especially since Pope Francis had called for action on climate change.
