Discovery High School U.S. history and physics teacher Jody Dixon developed a strategy to teach students about renewable energy.
“We are very interested in sustainability,” he said. “We want to try to figure out what a sustainable school would look like.”
Dixon enlisted the help of the Newton-Conover Education Foundation and its $1,500 Innovations in Education grant.
The grant is given annually to projects that meet measurable objectives and can show sustainability during an extended period of time.
This year, the foundation awarded the grant to Dixon’s class.
“Mr. Dixon’s project to focus on ‘green technology’ opportunities at a time when clean energy is a hot-button topic is very timely, and we know Discovery students will benefit from this resource,” foundation chairman Michael Willard said in a news release. “Further, Mr. Dixon’s decision to pursue a project that will not only enhance the career readiness for Discovery students, but also potentially create future cost-savings for the school system makes this a win-win.”
Dixon said he simply wanted to engage students.
“Everything was on them,” he said, pointed to three students who worked on the solar panel.
Dixon said students put in the work to build, install and monitor the solar panel.
“It definitely beats reading about solar panels,” junior Will Kennedy said.
