Austin, Texas – Renewable Energy Student Association (RESA), a student chapter of American Solar Energy Society (ASES) at Austin Community College, formed an outreach program to work with local high schools in the Central Texas area for assistance and education with establishing or supporting sustainable energy student clubs.  The first school RESA approached was Texas School for the Deaf (TSD).  RESA submitted a proposal to TSD to establish a yearlong program titled “After School Sustainable Energy Student Activity Program” to provide the students at TSD the opportunity to establish a sustainable energy student club with RESA providing the resources and connections RESA has with the sustainable energy community in Central Texas.  TSD has approved the proposal with several students already joining the program to start the club. The students named the club Green Rangers Energy Engineering Networking Club, GREEN Club.

 

Jason Shaw, the nation’s first deaf NABCEP Certified  Solar PV Installer and Founder/President of Blue Paw Energy Service, LLC is the chair of the outreach program and is currently the Networking & Travel Manager and former President of RESA.  Mr. Shaw felt, as the nation’s first deaf certified solar PV installer, he wanted to reach out to the deaf community and provide inspiration as well as education to encourage more deaf people to be involved in the sustainable energy field.  As his last act as the President of RESA, he established the standing Student Outreach Committee program with the goal of working with TSD to join the other local schools which have already had sustainable energy programs in place where TSD has limited programs.  Austin Energy and Austin Community College’s Electronic and Advanced Technology Department have joined the program to provide support.  Ronald Mahnick, another deaf Austin Community College student with background in engineering, currently the President of RESA, joined with Mr. Shaw to work with the students at TSD with their new GREEN Club.  A science teacher at TSD, Paul Stropko, who led a group of students to win the state robotics competition in the spring of 2013, has become the faculty advisor to TSD’s GREEN Club.

 

On December 11, 2013, another student club, Beginners Learning Alternative Designs for Energy (BLADE) with Taylor High School, will be coming to TSD, bringing their award winning Solar Project Van built by Taylor High School students with support from mentors with Electric Reliability Council of Texas (EROCT) which won an award at the last year’s IEEE PV Conference which gave Taylor High School a new $120,000 renewable energy system.  RESA invited BLADE Club to TSD to meet with the students as well as the staff at TSD to provide inspiration and connect the two clubs which has similar goals.  Mr. Shaw will be leading the presentation, with support of the students of the GREEN Club, to educate the TSD students about the after school sustainable energy student activity program to encourage them to join the club and be part of the program with people from BLADE providing advice on how they accomplished their program.  GREEN Club and RESA are currently working together to come up with schedule of presentations, projects and workshops for the Spring and Summer 2014 semesters.  Anyone with interest in supporting or sponsoring the program is welcome to contact Jason Shaw by emailing him at Jason.Shaw@g.austincc.edu.