By Karen Parr-Moody
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – Students at Clarksville Academy are turning on solar lights here, as well as in a tiny village in Ghana, Africa, due to an educational approach from the people who gave us the iPhone.
The students first built a small solar-powered house that now sits adjacent to the historic Smith-Trahern mansion here. Then they sent solar lights with a medical team from Elon University that was going to a rural village in Ghana; this was after students studied photos of the village and noticed it had no light after dark.
All of this happened because the students posed this question of themselves: “How can we reduce our energy dependence by incorporating the use of solar energy?”
The D. Light solar lights that students sent to Ghanaian villagers.
Posing questions is the traditional domain of teachers, not students. But in recent years Clarksville Academy, a private school, has adopted an educational approach called “challenge-based learning.” This philosophy had its roots in a 2009 paper published by Apple, Inc., the Cupertino, Calif.-based company behind iMacs, iPods and iPhones.
Challenge-based learning takes a collaborative approach to real life problems, allowing students to work together to seek solutions rather than teachers driving the action. Students are asked to come up with “big ideas,” like Clarksville Academy’s question about energy dependence. They also focus on universal challenges that have local solutions and try to come up with answers by using multiple educational disciplines.
Joanne Askew, Director of Challenge-Based Learning, sits enthusiastically at the helm of this program, which brings together students one Friday a month to ponder the world’s problems and solutions.
Askew says, “The way we teach needed to change the minute we started calling our phones ‘smart.’”
Solar Group facilitators Janie Manning and Corey Boyd with their students.
Because students have reams of information at their fingertips, rote memorization of facts has lost its luster, Askew explains. With her challenge-based learning program, students join the year-long challenge each September. At the first meeting for those who chose the solar project, students put together solar-powered ovens, in which they cooked hot dogs, and solar-powered cars. Later they visited an Austin Peay State University professor, Dr. Chester Little, who has solar panels on the roof of his home.
Ultimately they created a small building with a solar panel on its roof. Going forward, the students want to put the house on a trailer with wheels so that they can take it to different schools and explain the project. This is in answer to a challenge they posed to themselves: “How can we inspire others to utilize solar energy, especially young people?” For this they will work with Martha Pile, a UT Family and Consumer Sciences Extension agent who helped them with some of their original research.
“It’s just fascinating to see these kids come up with a plan,” Askew says.
Students working on their solar building.
Karen Parr-Moody began a career as a New York journalist, working as a fashion reporter for Women’s Wear Daily, a beauty editor for Young Miss and a beauty and fashion writer for both In Style and People magazines. Regionally, she has been a writer at The Leaf-Chronicle newspaper and currently writes about arts and culture for Nashville Arts magazine each month.