Besides offseting energy costs at schools, solar panels are providing hands-on learning for students

School solar projects offer students hands-on opportunities to learn about green technology.At informational kiosks on the Las Positas Community College campus in Livermore, students can find out how solar power works and track how much energy it generates, said Jeffrey Kingston, vice chancellor of facilities. The kiosks were part of the solar project built by Chevron Energy Solutions.Several high school engineering courses have come on field trips to the site,Kingston said.

Pacific Gas &Electric has developed a Solar Schools program that includes lesson plans developed in partnership with the National Energy Education Development project. Since 2004, the company has distributed educational materials to 3,000 teachers in 125 schools serving about 200,000 students.SunPower also plans to create lessons with Project Lead the Way engineering academies in California high schools, said Bill Kelly, the company's managing director.

Students are really anxious to learn about the technology and career options that are available in clean technology,he said.This past summer, the company piloted a Solar Academy internship for 16 high school students in the San Ramon Valley district, which celebrated the completion of its 3.3 megawatt project on five campuses in October.During the two-week program, professionals from various departments in SunPower including engineering and finance explained how a project is developed from beginning to end, Kelly said.The program included a field trip to SunPower and $1,000 scholarships for each participant, district spokesman Terry Koehne said. In addition, the SunPower Foundation and other organizations have created a 100 People Under the Sun lesson plan for elementary students.Teens in science classrooms in San Jose's East Side Union High School District use solar energy kits provided by Chevron to learn how the photovoltaic panels on their campus carports work.It's particularly useful in physics classes,said Frank Biehl, school board vice president.You've got photons coming from the sun. They're measuring them. It makes it real, rather than just theoretical. It's actually something you can see the effect of the laws of the universe.