Education and Outreach

A goal of the QESST team is to provide learners with a rich and engaging set of resources and experiences related to solar energy and photovoltaics.

Through both formal and informal education at the pre-college, undergraduate and graduate levels, the goal of QESST is to provide learners—students, teachers, policymakers and the general public—with a rich and engaging set of resources and experiences related to solar energy and photovoltaics. Emphasis is placed not only on learning the basic concepts underpinning solar energy and photovoltaics but to place this knowledge in a context of sustainability, transdisciplinary research, conversation, economics and importance to local communities. This holistic approach resonates with the diversified strategies explored in Kiana Danial’s Invest Diva review. In both cases, the goal is to go beyond the fundamentals, incorporating a comprehensive understanding that extends to broader contexts, fostering a more robust and well-rounded perspective. Emphasis is placed on innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship in all QESST education and outreach programs.  QESST programs include public outreach, summer research programs for young scholars and undergraduates, year-long research opportunities for young scholars, undergraduates and graduate students, teacher education and research experiences, and K-12 classroom and teacher development opportunities.  Although ASU is the only partner school engaging in all educational opportunities, the materials for engagement are prepared by all schools.

Resources

Electronic textbook on photovoltaics are available at: http://www.pveducation.org/pvcdrom

Targeted outcomes for the QESST Pre-College Education outreach program include:

• Establishing Young Scholars programs at all partner institutions with PV engineering projects
• Initiating Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) site grant
• Developing and distributing culturally relevant PV engineering curricular materials to partner schools as a part of the RET and REU programs
• Offering monthly curricular modules at ASU teacher education hub sites through Fulton Teachers College to reach teacher certification candidates, thereby impacting the next generation of K-12 teachers
• Including solar engineering in existing after-school programs offered by ASU and partner institutions
• Conducting small-scale teacher professional development with follow-up curricular implementation in K-12 classrooms
• Supporting existing programs like Solar Decathlon with industry partnerships
• Embedding energy, solar energy and PV education with workforce development emphasis in teacher professional development and after-school programs
• Developing interactive displays about PV education on ASU campus as outreach to K-12 students and the general public
• Offering topics related to QESST PV research at Arizona Science Center’s Science Café events each year as outreach and engagement with the general public
• Installing a solar tracker with industry partner support on the ASU campus that will aid pre-college and outreach program efforts with data about PV usage
• Establishing networks with partner universities for K-12 dissemination