8 SEPTEMBER 26, 2019 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
P.S. 171 to become fi rst of six schools in
the district to install solar power system
Students and staff at P.S. 171 look over the construction of solar panels on the school’s roof. Photos: Max Parrott/QNS
BY MAX PARROTT
MPARROTT@SCHNEPSMEDIA.COM
@QNS
Astoria’s environmentalist
Councilman Costa Constantinides
began New York City’s climate week
by assuring a student at P.S. 171 that
she shouldn’t be discouraged about
having difficulty in math because
when he was a student he struggled
in science.
“And now look — I’m the chair of
Environmental Protection Committee,”
said Constantinides.
The councilman joined with
teachers and administrators at P.S.
171 Peter G. Van Alst on Monday to
showcase the construction of a solar
panel grid capable of powering half
of the elementary’s school’s energy
consumption per year.
The school is the first of six in
the district that will receive solar
panels within the next two years.
The installation of the green infrastructure
will teach students about
the impact of renewable energy in
addition cutting carbon emissions.
Construction began last month
to attach 516 panels onto the 9,000-
square-foot rooftop space. The $1.5
million project on P.S. 171 secured
the funding from the City Council’s
capital budget.
“We need to prepare our leaders
— and our young people are going to
be our leaders — to combat climate
change as they move along in their
school life. They are the ones who
are going to have to deal with the
effects of rising seas and climate
change in general,” Constantinides
said.
The construction work is slated to
finish December, and the panels are
expected to be operational by the following
spring. Once up and running,
the solar panels are estimated to reduce
the building’s carbon emissions
by 50 metric tons of CO2 per year.
Science teacher Fred Salamone
said that he was already formulating
plans to use the new equipment in his
instruction. He said that his classes
were already building solar panels
and using them to power tiny motors.
He’s also looking forward to expanding
his sustainable infrastructure
instruction with the use of a grantfunded
hydroponic science lab that
the school is building as well.
“When students come up to me
and ask me, ‘Oh Mr. Salamone, why
do we do this?’ I’ll come up here and
show them is exactly why we do
the things we do in the classroom,”
Salamone said.
The Department of Education has
worked with environmental groups
to make sustainable energy a focal
point of its STEM education curriculum.
Several city agencies partnered
to launch the Solar Schools Education
Program, which trains teachers how
to incorporate solar infrastructure
into their lesson plans.
“We will enhance our students’
learning of clean energy by providing
this real world application to
their science knowledge,” said Lisa
Stone, principal of P.S. 171. “We are
extremely grateful to be working
with our councilman to make Astoria
a clean energy place to live.”
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