The Illinois Solar Schools and Illinois Wind Schools programs are designed to help students, teachers, and communities understand more about renewable energy by providing grants to install working solar and wind technology at K-12 schools across Illinois.
As a teacher, you are the most important part of the educational process. Installing a solar photovoltaic system or a wind turbine at your school provides a wonderful opportunity for students to learn about science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) topics, the politics and economics of environmental policies, and many other important issues related to technology and the environment.
In addition, there are great opportunities to incorporate humanities subjects such as history, literature, and civics. This enhances the value of STEM education by tying it into many broader issues that currently face, and will continue to face, present and future generations of students.
In this section you’ll find helpful links and additional guidance on how to bring these important topics to your students.
Two of the biggest features of the Illinois Solar Schools and Illinois Wind Schools programs are real-time data for each school and annual teacher training workshops. Real-time data dashboards for each school in the program give you and your students the chance to see renewable energy systems in action. In addition, we post monthly production data for every school in the program that you can use in the classroom. Check out data for this month by clicking on the link on the right side of the home page.
Illinois Clean Energy works with a number of partner organizations to provide teachers with training workshops twice a year and other resources on how to approach energy topics in the classroom.