3 Minute Interview-SeanMiller
June 17, 2009
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Political anxiety over climate change doesn’t rankle Miller too much, as long as he can keep finding students willing to do something about it in their own communities. As the educational director for Earth Day Network, he recently helped a group of students at Alexandria’s Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology use their smarts to harness some sunshine.
How did this project come to be?
A Thomas Jefferson student, Varun Bansal, came up with the idea a few years ago to install solar panels on the school’s roof. He came to us about two years ago, and we all sat down together to make it a reality. We all laid out a plan for the fundraising, the communication skills and the scope of the work to accomplish it. And last week they did it — they installed a $56,000 solar panel system at their high school.
What will it be able to do for the school?
It’s going to provide about 3 percent of the building’s energy needs, which is a significant step forward. It’s going to save the school $50,000 in 25 years, and it’ll save 140,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere. And it didn’t cost the district anything; they raised the money themselves.
What was your reaction when the students came to you?
Very excited. We had been wanting to create a model like this that could be used by other schools around the country.
It was a huge project — did the students ever become frustrated?
They were very dedicated and steadfast in their efforts, and that’s part of the reason it only took two years after we provided some seed money. The main frustration was the red tape involved in installing something at the school.
Any more projects under way?
Absolutely — we’re trying to do projects every three to six months. We’ll be trying [a similar] one with D.C. Public Schools sometime in the coming year.
