UKIAH, Calif. – During the fall semester, Mendocino County Office of Education students at New Beginnings School and West Hills School participated in a semester-long science, technology, engineering and math project, one of 18 such projects in Central and Northern California supported by PG&E to create portable energy sources for energy-deficient schools in rural Ecuador.

The PG&E Solar Suitcase Project is part of the PG&E Foundation's Better Together Giving Program, designed to empower teens to build We Share Solar Suitcases (www.wesharesolar.org).

Theresa House in the MCOE Curriculum and Instruction Department teamed up with MCOE Alternative Education teachers Jeanne Metcalf and Annette Morrison to offer this hands-on program in which students learned about the design and operation of basic photovoltaic (solar energy) systems and electricity as they explored issues of renewable energy and sustainability.

As a culminating project, each school built a 12-volt DC stand-alone solar system, the solar suitcase.

“Students used their new skills and knowledge to give the gift of light to children in underdeveloped areas of the world,” House said.

This year the solar suitcases will be deployed in March to energy-deficient schools in rural Ecuador to provide overhead lights in classrooms.