By Faire Davidson
Going green has been a goal this year for the school. The middle schoolers lost their water bottles and gained filtered water fountains with more plans under way.
Adam Rothman â09, Ben Barad â09 and Bobby Kazimiroff â09 were approached by science teacher Antonio Nassar last November asking them to investigate how Harvard-Westlake could go green.
The three were already working on a project involving wireless power, but because they were making so much progress, Nassar thought they would be interested in taking on a larger task.
The three students investigated the cost of solar panels and measured how many could fit on the roof of Munger. Then, the team calculated how much power the panels would generate. They have bought one solar panel and have been measuring the amount of energy it could generate.
They went on the roof of the science building to measure the space that could be alloted for the panels and got estimates of the cost of the panels and their efficiency from the Internet. The students also hope to get solar companies to offer deals on panels.
They have calculated the overall cost of the project and estimated when the panels will pay for themselves by lowering energy costs.
“I really do hope the rest of the world will start putting forth a greater effort to go green,” said Kazimiroff. “If HW can manage to find room in its budget for this solar system it would be a great place to begin such an effort.”
