Solar One at Honda Manufacturing Alabama
Solar One hit the road last week to offer teachers in five counties around Birmingham, Alabama a workshop on Solar One’s Professional Development program – the Green Innovator. Teachers learned how to use the Green Innovator curriculum, got a chance to try a hands-on activity and got a full tour of Honda’s Manufacturing Plant in Lincoln, AL from the perspective of an environmental engineer on staff.
Check out the full report from Fox News Alabama:
FOXe Report: Green Innovator
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC-TV MyFoxAL.com) – An environmental lesson on wheels…Ronda Robinson explains why some area teachers made little solar powered cars, and hit the road with them…more
The Green Innovator is supported by JAMA – the Japanese Automobile Manufacturing Association and The Motorola Foundation.
Posted in Education, Energy, Other Events, S1 in the News | Permalink
Chris Neidl in the GOOD 100!
Each year, GOOD Magazine assembles a list of 100 “people, businesses, and institutions driving change in the world.” This year we are proud to see that they have chosen Solar One’s Outreach and Advocacy Coordinator Chris Neidl as one of their 100. Chris has been tireless in his work buidling programs at Solar One and working to make the case for the promotion and implementation of solar power, so it’s nice to see his efforts getting significant recognition.
Check out the video to see Chris (and his five o’clock shadow) talking to an animated news anchor and explaining why New York City is ripe to be the solar capital of the East Coast. He also talks briefly about the portable solar chargers that he and his students built as part of the I Heart PV program.
There’s lots more coming from Solar One and I Heart PV in coming weeks and months, starting with next week’s Solar Party at Southpaw in Brooklyn. We hope you can join us!
Posted in I Heart PV, Photovoltaics, Renewables, S1 in the News, Solar One, Solar Power | Permalink
Chris Collins Interview on Alternative Channel TV- Holcim Gold 2008
Interview with Christopher J. Collins, Gold winner of the 2008 Holcim Awards North America. Chris Collins, Executive Director, won the Holcim Awards Gold 2008 for his project: Solar 2 Green Energy Arts and Education Center, New York, USA
Posted in S1 in the News, Solar 2 | Permalink
Solar Pavilion 3 Featured In Interior Design
The centerpiece of Solar One’s Citysol festival this past June, Solar Pavilion 3 continues to receive accolades. The temporary structure, designed and constructed by Brooklyn-based Situ Studio, is featured in the Centerfold section of Interior Design magazine’s September issue. Assembled from slotted strips of plywood, the pavilion provided multiple uses during the course of the festival as a lecture/presentation space, bar, and shade/rest area for festival-goers. Like Situ’s previous pavilions for Citysol, this year’s incorporated organic, flowing forms that harmonized with the curvilinear pathways of Stuyvesant Cove Park and captured the general spirit of sustainability that is at the festival’s core. As always, all materials used to make Solar Pavilion 3 were reused or recycled.
Congratulations to our partners at Situ Studio for this deserved recognition. We can’t wait to see what they come up with next year…
Posted in Citysol, Green Building, New York City, S1 in the News, Solar One, Stuyvesant Cove Park | Permalink
Solar One and MCHS Mentioned in NYT City Room Blog Today!
In today’s New York Times, the City Room blog talks about the possibilities of Green Collar jobs and why they’d be so good for the city. Solar One Advocacy Coordinator Chris Neidl is interviewed and talks about the local nature of solar jobs and building retrofitting. They also mentioned the solar installation class he taught last spring at Manhattan Comprehensive- the same kids who made up the very successful I Heart PV Street Team.
Posted in Education, Green Collar Jobs, S1 in the News | Permalink
Solar One Receives MAS Award!
Solar One Executive Director Chris Collins accepts the award
Last week Solar One was an honored recipient of an Annual Award from the Municipal Art Society of New York. Celebrating “groups that help define what makes New York City great,” Solar One was selected along with NYC’s 311 service, the Long Island City Cultural Alliance, American Ballroom Theater and Jose the Beaver (accepted by the Bronx River Alliance). It was an eclectic mix of what makes New York City such a wonderful place to live and work, and we were proud to be included. We want to thank the Municipal Art Society, their Board and Nominating Committee, and everyone who has helped bring Solar One to where we are today in just 4 years. We can only hope that there will be more awards in our future.
Posted in New York City, S1 in the News | Permalink
Kudos to One of Solar One’s Own
A member of the Solar One family received high praise in the local press this week. Christopher Kennedy, ecological artist and Educational Coordinator at Solar One, was featured in yesterday’s New York Metro. CK’s “Urban Epiphyte” project caught the attention of New Yorkers throughout the city, as participants donned vegetation as part of their daily dress to draw notice to our local ecology. Epiphytes are organisms, mostly plants, that live by attaching themselves to other plants for physical support. Mainstays of rain forests such as orchids and bromeliads, which essentially grow in the upper canopy of their host trees, are the most well-known members of this classification.
Participants in the “Urban Epiphyte” project went through their normal routines wearing live plants culled by CK from Prospect Park in tool belts and fanny packs, documenting reactions and interactions with other New Yorkers. In one instance, a crowd gathered to help as one plant fell to the subway platform. Chris himself noted that the people he encountered treated his plants with the care normally reserved for pets and that many kept discussing the incident afterward. Ultimately, those fortuitous witnesses were inclined to consider aspects of their environments that they normally take for granted in a new light. Isn’t that the whole point to quality art?
Posted in Art, Energy Efficiency, Global Warming, Legislation, Native Plants, New York City, S1 in the News, Solar One | Permalink
The I Heart PV Street Team Visits Albany, Urges Stronger Solar Policies for the State.
On Monday June 16th, with only a week remaining until the end of the current legislative session, six members of the Manhattan Comprehensive Night and Day High School I Heart PV Street Team met with key leaders in Albany to make the case for solar energy in New York City and State. The group met with distinguished senators from throughout the state, including the Chair of the Senate Energy Committee, George Maziarz, and Senators Joseph Griffo and Michael Nozzolio.
The Albany expedition occurred as a result of Brooklyn Senator Eric Adams’ deep interest and appreciation for the I Heart PV project and the street team’s activities. After seeing the team in action last month at the Grand Army Plaza Green Market in his Brooklyn district, the senator invited them to join him for a fast-paced day of lobbying in Albany. I Heart PV warmly thanks him for his hard work, generosity and responsiveness to the campaign’s goals
The Senator and his wonderful office administrator Mary Harris arranged an amazing experience for the young members of the team that none of them will soon forget. In addition to meeting directly with Senators, during which time they were able to commend the officials for passing expanded net-metering legislation and the New York City Solar Property Tax Abatement as well as inquire about what the state might do next to help advance solar development, the group also appeared before a session of the Senate Minority Conference. After being formerly introduced by Senator Adams the group demonstrated their mobile solar charging unit and answered questions from curious senators, including Suzi Oppenheimer and and NYC’s own Velmanette Montgomery, Ruth Hassell-Thompson, and Andrea Stewart-Cousins.
Perhaps the team’s most exciting moment occurred at the end of the day when they met directly with Assembly Member Herman Farrell just one hour before he moved the Solar Property Tax Abatement bill (introduced by the Assembly Member himself) through the Ways and Means Committee, of which he is the chair. Team member Khaddy Ndiaye had the chance to directly relay to the Assembly Member the merits of the policy and why it should be considered a high priority during the last days of the session.
The street team has done an amazing job this spring reaching out to hundreds of New Yorkers, and encouraging voter interest in state solar policies and legislation. Their commitment was crucial to the campaign’s success and Solar One could not be more impressed by their efforts and proud of their accomplishments. Indeed, it would not surprise us in the least if at some point in the future one or more of them were to one day experience lobbying from the other end of the table.
Posted in I Heart PV, Legislation, Renewables, S1 in the News | Permalink
Solar One in Eyebeam’s FEEDBACK Exhibition
Eyebeam’s expansive new exhibition, FEEDBACK, surveys artists, designers, architects and engineers on the topic of sustainability, and presents their responses—19 projects varying from public art projects and industrial design to DIY energy solutions and software tools—to inspire discussion and action on this pervasive (and increasingly commodified) subject.
As the culmination of Eyebeam’s Beyond Light Bulbs programming series, the show highlights the concerns, interests and work of Eyebeam’s Sustainability Research Group, with work by individuals, collectives, students, local community groups and the Eco-Vis Challenge winners. Free, artist-run workshops are integral to the exhibition’s design and are scheduled Saturdays throughout the show’s duration. See Solar One in the FEEDBACK exhibition today at Eyebeam: 540 W. 21st St.
Posted in Art, Education, Energy, S1 in the News | Permalink
Futurefarmers + Solar One Collaboration Mentioned in NY Metro
Modern Victory Gardens may ease urban hunger
by amy zimmer / metro new york
FEB 12, 2008
UNION SQUARE. To Amy Franceschini, the empty space in front of the Gandhi statue here could be an urban garden. The windows on buildings could have boxes for herbs and tomatoes. The roofs could have raised beds.
Franceschini, founder of the San Francisco-based design collective Futurefarmers, has convinced her city to plant crops in front of its City Hall as part of a pilot program to turn yards, balconies and unused land into food production areas. [...]
Franceschini plans to document their gardens online and help other cities adopt the program. She’s been contacted by several New York groups, she said, including Grow Greenpoint.com, the Conflux festival and Solar One.
“We want our audience to think about the potential for change through participation, but also about the messy politics of implementation”… full article
more on victory gardens: here
Posted in Art, Citysol, Native Plants, New York City, S1 in the News | Permalink
