CIS of Orange County -Teens install solar lighting at Town Commons

BY BETH VELLIQUETTE
The Herald-Sun
bvelliquette@heraldsun.com
Jun 30, 2009

CARRBORO — A group of five teens installed a solar lighting system Monday that will light up the Carrboro Town Commons sign and possibly illuminate their futures in the emerging world of solar technology.

The rising ninth-graders are enrolled in the Green Awakening Math and Science Camp, which is run through Communities in Schools of Orange County.

The teens built the framework, installed a switch box, dug trenches for the wire, wired the lights and climbed up a ladder to install the solar panel near the sign.

Forty-four rising ninth-graders from the five high schools in Orange County are enrolled in the camp, according to its executive director Sheila Sholes-Ross. Five professional teachers or instructors with an engineering background, five college undergraduates and five rising juniors and seniors from the five high schools work with the students at the camp.

The camp is in its second year of existence, and 17 campers from last year are now enrolled in an SAT preparation program that meets on Mondays and Thursdays.

For the installation of the solar panel, Sholes-Ross picked five campers based on their enthusiasm for science and the project.

For example, Baxter Fricks, 13, of Carrboro, has been working on his own inventions, including a small personal fan and a magnetic device that creates a small amount of electricity.

“I’ve learned how to make solar ovens and solar cars,” he said. “I’ve learned how to make motors.”

He hopes to study engineering at N.C. State University or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he said.

Malik Carrington, 13, who is about to enter Chapel Hill High School, has always had an interest in science, so his mother signed him up for the camp. He hopes to study entomology at the University of Southern California.

Angelo Archambo, 15, said he’s not much for sitting in a classroom taking notes, which is why he likes the camp.

“I like stuff when it’s hands-on activities like what we’re doing here,” he said. “I just fall asleep when I have to write down notes.”

He especially liked making and testing the solar oven, by making s’mores in it.

“My opinion is it was one of the best-tasting s’mores ever,” he said.

Archambo is thinking about going to college at Syracuse, UNC or Ohio State — or pitching for the New York Yankees.

While the boys worked on digging a trench for the wiring from the solar panel to the lights, Jason Guthrie, who works with Ed Witkin of Solar Tech South, worked with Alexis Barnes, 14, and Evonna Sampedro, 14, on a frame for the solar panel.

They cut, drilled and bolted pieces together as Guthrie explained the project to them.

Solar Tech South invited the students to its company to teach them about solar projects so that they would be ready to install the lighting system.

It’s important to teach students now about energy, solar power and other alternative forms of energy, Guthrie said.

“I think this is a tremendous project,” Guthrie said. “They’re in a period of time when it couldn’t be better as far as a future in this industry.”

Solar Tech South donated the time of its employees to teach the campers about solar technology and to install the system. A grant from Duke Energy paid for the materials, Witkin said.