PRESS
RELEASE
CONTACT:
Chi Kim, Principal
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
310.457.9370 x202
06
May 2009
Point Dume Marine Science School (PDMSS), a public elementary
school within the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, will reduce its
carbon footprint to help save the planet. With the financial support of
The David Geffen Foundation, Shangri-La Construction, Diana and Roger Jenkins,
Kelly and Ron Meyer, PDMSS PTA, and proceeds from a lemonade stand managed by
second graders, PDMSS has successfully added thirty-three solar panels to one
of its buildings. Next week, PDMSS will
be the first public elementary school in southern California to join the local
power grid due to public and private community partnerships that supported the
school’s focus on environmental education and advocacy.
Point Dume Marine Science School students are taught about the fragile
ecosystems and how one’s choices make a vital difference to the world. Students learn to be solutions oriented and
thus recycle, compost, reuse steel water
bottles, reduce trash, and participate in the Annual Heal the Bay Beach
Cleanup. Students sold reusable grocery
bags to raise money for a film about watershed protection. They also successfully advocated to the local
school board to ban the use of styrofoam lunch trays in the school’s cafeteria.
Fifth grader, Emma Kelly, states,
“Learning about the environment teaches students that they can make a difference
in their own school and hopefully their homes.”
Over the course of the last two and a half years, PDMSS has been working on
enhancing its environmental science studies to add solar panels to the school.
Because of its intense focus on the
environment, PDMSS students have played a vital role in being advocates for a greener world. A group of students wanted to make a
difference so they raised funds to support the project by having a
lemonade stand as their end of year
party. “We were reading Time for Kids, and we read this article about solar
panels. And we decided that we wanted to
put them on our school. It makes me feel pretty good that I earned
money for the lemonade stand. Instead of using electricity, we wanted to
help the environment by getting solar
panels,” stated Tyler Ray, third grader.
The dream of having a living model of energy conversion at students’
fingertips will come to fruition as a wireless monitoring system comes
online when PDMSS joins the power grid
with Southern California Edison. Students will be able to log on to see how
much of the sun’s energy is being
converted into electricity from any computer on campus.
Thirty-three solar modules were installed by Perma City Solar on southward facing classrooms to ensure
maximum sun exposure. Students and faculty alike take great pride in the
fact that their school alone is preventing 3.52 tons of coal from being burned
and 10,919 pounds of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere.
When asked his thoughts about the project, fifth grader, Harry Putterman said, “It’s a learning experience to find ways to
help stop global warming. If you learn about it then you can help stop it.”
Chi Kim, Principal of PDMSS, “After two and a half years of going through the
design, DSA approval, public bidding, and final installation and DSA inspection
process, it is hugely gratifying to finally have solar panels on our school
building. It has been our goal to tie in all aspects of our environmental
science curriculum and bring in real life models for our students. Thanks
to some exceptional public and private community partnerships, we are the
beneficiaries of a community that believes in working together to create a more
sustainable world for future generations. I am thankful that our students can really be
a part of our contribution to reducing our carbon footprint.”
####
SANTA
MONICA-MALIBU UNIFIED
ph:
310.450.8338; fax: 310.581.1138
www.smmusd.org