School As Tool

Posted by Kenneth Ronkowitz on

My new assignment at NJIT has me "based" at Science Park High School in Newark, NJ. SPHS is a few blocks away from our campus and is brand new math & science magnet school for Newark. NJIT is placing two of us there full time to help integrate technology in the classes. It's part of our K20 initiative. I remain as Manager of Instructional Technology and a network specialist will be added this summer.


I'll be doing a presentation this month at EduComm which is connected to InfoComm in Anaheim, CA. More on that next week, but in brief, the session is titled "Human Networking: A University, High School, Industry Partnership" and is about the partnership between Newark Public Schools, University Heights Science Park and three public research universities. New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), The University of Medicine & Dentistry of NJ (UMDNJ), Rutgers University at Newark, and Essex County College.


SPHS is developing, now that it's in its new building (since November 2006), new curriculum transform mathematics and science teaching and learning through research-based learning, PBLs and ties to K-20 institutions of the STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering & math) which is a perfect fir for neighboring NJIT which is NJ's science and math university.


One of the units I'll be introducing this fall I am calling "School as Tool" and it uses the powerful energy design of the school as a teaching tool.


I'm hardly original in this. In fact, what made me think of it was watching professors from our NJ School of Architecture (which is a part of NJIT) do their walking class sessions using buildings on campus for lessons. (My old basement office area was part of the "things done wrong" class.) They have a graduate certificate program in Sustainable Design of Green Buildings.


Demand and interest in renewable energy and distributed power generation is growing as we finally tune in to climate change, energy supply security and cost concerns. Solar electric, solar & geo thermal, wind, fuel cells are becoming more viable energy alternatives.


If teachers are looking for real world data and problem-based activities for class, they should be looking at energy. The applications to science & math are obvious, but consider the social science aspects of energy policy, the design aspects that can be used in art, the writing opportunities (there are some definite persuasive essays waiting to be written) there is a critical need to ensure that performance can be accurately and easily monitored, managed and controlled.


We use services that feature a web-based interface that consists of dynamic, easy-to-understand graphics and data that can be accessed by anyone online. It transforms raw energy data into a "dashboard" view, so you can see live and historical views of the school's energy being produced, consumed and returned to the grid.


The information can be viewed online using the services of Fat Spaniel Technologies, a leading provider of information services for the renewable energy industry. They provide hosted data monitoring, management and control services that are used by equipment manufacturers, installers, and utilities. Though some of these clients are using this to measure performance and monitor savings & investment returns, we are interested in the easy access display of data for our students to use.




Look at the energy being produced at SPHS right now.


At NJIT, we are displaying online the energy from the solar panels on top of our Campus Center.


Any teacher using this information has a dynamic lesson. Even if you're at a school that is not doing this sort of thing, the data available just by looking at the collection of live sites that are available online has plenty of information for comparison and study.


Here are are a few sites I selected for comparison with SPHS and NJIT data.


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