Education for Sustainability
The Renewable Nations Institute was established in 1998 as a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) based instructional technology program of EcoSage Corporation under the SolarQuest™ brand name. From 2004-15, SolarQuest™ operated as the non-profit SolarQuest Education Foundation, Inc. In 2015, SolarQuest™ merged with the Global Challenge Award, Inc., d.b.a. The Renewable Nations Institute.
SECTION 1: 1998-2001
U.S. Africa Energy Ministerial - Village Power 2000
U.S. Africa Energy Ministerial - Village Power 2000
Project Partners
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US-Africa Energy Ministerial:
From 1999 to 2001, SolarQuest Co-sponsored the U.S.-Africa Energy Ministerial Meeting providing renewable energy and energy efficiency technical assistance and human capacity building services to 52 African Nations. This effort led to over 2,500 solar systems installed throughout sub-Saharan Africa, including the first faith-based energy partnership with the United States Department of Energy - Solar Lights for Africa. See CNN video below: |
Solar Lights for Africa was a White House Millennium Council Project in collaboration with Former First Lady Hillary Clinton (United States) and First Lady Janet Museveni (Republic of Uganda).
SECTION 2: 2002-09
United Nations, Project ERGAL
United Nations, Project ERGAL
Project Partners
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Project ERGAL (Renewable Energy Galapagos) in the Province of the Galapagos (Republic of Ecuador) was the first CDM (Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project in Latin America under the Kyoto Protocol. The project was developed in under the umbrella of the United Nations Foundation, the Global Sustainable Electricity Partnership (formerly the e8 Network for Expertise on the Global Environment), the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships (UNFIP), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Government of the Republic of Ecuador.
Project ERGAL included the cooperation of over 36 international organizations and private industry partners, and provided the framework for the participation of SolarQuest L3C as a Technical Assistance and Human Capacity Building Partner of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, as shown in this condensed Project ERGAL Organizational Ecosystem diagram, below:
Project ERGAL included the cooperation of over 36 international organizations and private industry partners, and provided the framework for the participation of SolarQuest L3C as a Technical Assistance and Human Capacity Building Partner of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, as shown in this condensed Project ERGAL Organizational Ecosystem diagram, below:
Project ERGAL Organizational Ecosystem
Project ERGAL Video
Project ERGAL Publications
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Project Story - SolarQuest (pgs. 45-49)
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Project Research Publication
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Case Study - Performance Analysis
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Case Study (Summary)
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Project ERGAL Highlights
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SECTION 3: 2006-15
STEM-based Instructional Technology Education Research
STEM-based Instructional Technology Education Research
Project Partners
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2006 - 2009: SolarQuest™ worked in collaboration with the Global Challenge Award, Inc. and the University of Vermont to engage young women and minority high school students in a series of integrated STEM activities. One thousand high school students from around the world – including students from developing countries – worked in eLearning teams to create innovative business solutions to address global climate change, and presented the global business potential of their solutions to a panel of industry professionals. ITEST Grant #DRL-0624663 Award: $924,000 (See video below.)
2008 - 2013: SolarQuest™ worked in collaboration with the University of North Texas (Denton, Texas) and Global Challenge (Stowe, Vermont) on M-SOS-W: Middle Schoolers out to Save the World. Approximately 600 sixth graders from seven middle schools in Louisiana, Maine, Texas and Vermont monitored home energy use to develop optimum scenarios for conserving energy and reducing production of greenhouses gases in local communities. M-SOS-W was adapted for U.S. middle schools from the SolarQuest™ (Allan Baer) Productivity-centered Service-learning (PCSL) Action Research pedagogy. ITEST Grant #DRL-083376 Award: $1,500,000 (See video below.)
2013-2017: Tandra Tyler-Wood, Associate Professor of Special Education and Head of the Educational Diagnostician Program, has been awarded a second large National Science Foundation Grant, Going Green! Middle Schoolers Out to Save the World (M-SOS-W), based her work in the general field of science education at the secondary level.
For the M-SOS-W project, Tyler-Wood will serve as subject matter expert for special populations including gifted/talented and those with disabilities. She will serve as an investigator advising the M-SOS-W curriculum developer (Baer) with prototyping new modules to address the most pressing categories of disabilities accommodations. The $1.9 million dollar project began on August 15, 2013 and will run until July 31, 2017. ITEST Grand #1312168. Award: $2,000,000.
For the M-SOS-W project, Tyler-Wood will serve as subject matter expert for special populations including gifted/talented and those with disabilities. She will serve as an investigator advising the M-SOS-W curriculum developer (Baer) with prototyping new modules to address the most pressing categories of disabilities accommodations. The $1.9 million dollar project began on August 15, 2013 and will run until July 31, 2017. ITEST Grand #1312168. Award: $2,000,000.
SECTION 4: 2015-16
STEM-Based Digital Video Globe Instructional Technology
STEM-Based Digital Video Globe Instructional Technology
CARBON RESEARCH COLLABORATIVE, ABSTRACT: The Carbon Research Collaborative will engage teachers and students in public schools across America in Action Research inquiries on the impact of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions on climate change, on Earth’s Biosphere and on human populations. See promotional video, below:
Using data from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2) and other NASA satellites teachers and students will:
Research outcomes will be displayed on iGlobe Digital Video Globe (DVG) instructional technologies and will be viewed worldwide by over 30 million people annually in hundreds of museums worldwide.
The aim of the Carbon Research Collaborative is to examine the potential of Action Research – teachers and students collaborating with the science research community – combined with the use of cutting-edge satellite infrastructure and DVG instructional technologies to raise students’ comprehension of and improve students’ attitudes toward STEM education and careers; and to educate youth and the general public on risks of unmitigated global warming.
Learn more at the Carbon Research Collaboration web site. Also see: NSF STTR Grant #1416970: Award: $224,978.
- Measure global CO2 emissions from the world's megacities;
- Assess Earth’s capacity to sequester CO2 in the Biosphere; and
- Model the potential for negative socioeconomic and environmental impacts in their communities and across the globe.
Research outcomes will be displayed on iGlobe Digital Video Globe (DVG) instructional technologies and will be viewed worldwide by over 30 million people annually in hundreds of museums worldwide.
The aim of the Carbon Research Collaborative is to examine the potential of Action Research – teachers and students collaborating with the science research community – combined with the use of cutting-edge satellite infrastructure and DVG instructional technologies to raise students’ comprehension of and improve students’ attitudes toward STEM education and careers; and to educate youth and the general public on risks of unmitigated global warming.
Learn more at the Carbon Research Collaboration web site. Also see: NSF STTR Grant #1416970: Award: $224,978.
SECTION 5: 2015-20
United Nations Partnership Commitments
United Nations Partnership Commitments
Program Description: The Renewable Nations Institute Partnership Commitments are to: (1) provide an integrated set of Enabling Actions in Energy Planning and Policies, and in Capacity Building and Knowledge Sharing, targeted to 81 low- and middle-income countries of the United Nations Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) Initiative; (2) establish a United States Partnership for Sustainable Development to stimulate $200 billion USD in U.S.-based investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy (EERE) projects through 2030; and (3) develop a technical assistance and human capacity building services center (Project Incubator) to support the development of investment-grade proposals for targeted countries of the SEforALL Initiative. The Institute will conduct its Commitment Partnership obligations through the implementation of a United Nations Junior Ambassador - Fellow Programme.
Additional Background Information
1996-98: SolarQuest™ was conceived as a solar energy and climate change education program during a graduate research project in Social Ecology at Goddard College (1996), and established as an educational service program of EcoSage Corporation in 1998.
1998-2001: SolarQuest™ collaborated with the President's Million Solar Roofs Initiative (Clinton Administration) to install solar (photovoltaic) energy systems to improve science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in American public schools. Solar energy systems were installed throughout the northeast and mid-west.
1999: SolarQuest™ co-sponsored the President's Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD) National Town Meeting (NTM) for a Sustainable America (Detroit, MI) and the NTM Youth Roundtable, representing the Voice of American for the 21st Century.
1999-2000: SolarQuest™ co-sponsored Village Power 2000, a White House Millennium Council project to install solar (photovoltaic) energy systems in community centers, schools, libraries, medical facilities and orphanages in remote areas of Africa (Uganda and Tanzania) in partnership with the Republic of Uganda and Solar Lights for Africa.
1999-2001: SolarQuest™ provided technical assistance and human capacity building services for African energy ministers in collaboration with the Department of Energy US/Africa Energy Ministerial Meeting and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
2000-01: SolarQuest™ established the first "deep-rural" solar-powered telecenter, educational telecenter under the G-8 mandate for universal service in the Amazon Rain Forest (Republic of Bolivia) in collaboration with the White House Millennium Council and American Electric Power, and provided technical assistance to the HP World e-Inclusion program.
2002-05: SolarQuest™ participated in the development and implementation of national-scale, deep-rural, solar-powered information and communications technologies for development (ICT4D) programs in collaboration with non-governmental and government agencies, private industry, and international donor agencies in Honduras, Guatemala, Venezuela, Bhutan, Ecuador and Peru.
2002-08: SolarQuest™ worked in the Province of the Galapagos (Ecuador) in collaboration with the e8 Network for Expertise on the Global Environment, United Nations Foundation, United Nations Fund for International Partnerships, United Nations Development Programme, and the Government of the Republic of Ecuador to re-power Galapagos Islands with renewable energy technologies, and to provide technology education reform for Galapagos public schools. The Renewable Nations Institute was conceived by SolarQuest™ and supported by the United Nations as a proposed global extension of the Renewable Energy Applications Laboratory (REAL) of the Galapagos Archipelago, and developed under contract with the United Nations Development Programme (2006-2008).
2008-17: SolarQuest™ worked in collaboration with the University of North Texas (Denton, Texas) and Global Challenge (Stowe, Vermont) on a $1.5 million three-year National Science Foundation (NSF) grant - Middle Schoolers Out-to-Save the World (M-SOS-W) - designed to improve cognitive development and change attitudes about STEM education. M-SOS-W is based on the adaptation of the SolarQuest™ Productivity-centered Service-learning (PCSL) pedagogy and was funded under NSF grants #DRL-083376 and #DRL-1312168..
2014-16: SolarQuest L3C™ is launching the Carbon Research Collaborative, a Climate Action Education Action-based Research program. SolarQuest L3C™ is partnering with iGlobe, Inc. (Franklin, New Hampshire) to provide low-cost, flat-screen Digital Video Globe (DVG) Technologies for the Carbon Research Collaborative, based upon research conducted under NSF STTR Grant #1416970.
1998-2001: SolarQuest™ collaborated with the President's Million Solar Roofs Initiative (Clinton Administration) to install solar (photovoltaic) energy systems to improve science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in American public schools. Solar energy systems were installed throughout the northeast and mid-west.
1999: SolarQuest™ co-sponsored the President's Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD) National Town Meeting (NTM) for a Sustainable America (Detroit, MI) and the NTM Youth Roundtable, representing the Voice of American for the 21st Century.
1999-2000: SolarQuest™ co-sponsored Village Power 2000, a White House Millennium Council project to install solar (photovoltaic) energy systems in community centers, schools, libraries, medical facilities and orphanages in remote areas of Africa (Uganda and Tanzania) in partnership with the Republic of Uganda and Solar Lights for Africa.
1999-2001: SolarQuest™ provided technical assistance and human capacity building services for African energy ministers in collaboration with the Department of Energy US/Africa Energy Ministerial Meeting and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
2000-01: SolarQuest™ established the first "deep-rural" solar-powered telecenter, educational telecenter under the G-8 mandate for universal service in the Amazon Rain Forest (Republic of Bolivia) in collaboration with the White House Millennium Council and American Electric Power, and provided technical assistance to the HP World e-Inclusion program.
2002-05: SolarQuest™ participated in the development and implementation of national-scale, deep-rural, solar-powered information and communications technologies for development (ICT4D) programs in collaboration with non-governmental and government agencies, private industry, and international donor agencies in Honduras, Guatemala, Venezuela, Bhutan, Ecuador and Peru.
2002-08: SolarQuest™ worked in the Province of the Galapagos (Ecuador) in collaboration with the e8 Network for Expertise on the Global Environment, United Nations Foundation, United Nations Fund for International Partnerships, United Nations Development Programme, and the Government of the Republic of Ecuador to re-power Galapagos Islands with renewable energy technologies, and to provide technology education reform for Galapagos public schools. The Renewable Nations Institute was conceived by SolarQuest™ and supported by the United Nations as a proposed global extension of the Renewable Energy Applications Laboratory (REAL) of the Galapagos Archipelago, and developed under contract with the United Nations Development Programme (2006-2008).
2008-17: SolarQuest™ worked in collaboration with the University of North Texas (Denton, Texas) and Global Challenge (Stowe, Vermont) on a $1.5 million three-year National Science Foundation (NSF) grant - Middle Schoolers Out-to-Save the World (M-SOS-W) - designed to improve cognitive development and change attitudes about STEM education. M-SOS-W is based on the adaptation of the SolarQuest™ Productivity-centered Service-learning (PCSL) pedagogy and was funded under NSF grants #DRL-083376 and #DRL-1312168..
2014-16: SolarQuest L3C™ is launching the Carbon Research Collaborative, a Climate Action Education Action-based Research program. SolarQuest L3C™ is partnering with iGlobe, Inc. (Franklin, New Hampshire) to provide low-cost, flat-screen Digital Video Globe (DVG) Technologies for the Carbon Research Collaborative, based upon research conducted under NSF STTR Grant #1416970.