By a PSOLI student
It was impossible to miss this summer. It was impossible not to see those big number 4’s every time you drove past a gas station. Maybe you heard your parents grumbling about the price of gasoline hitting $4.00 and MORE. Maybe you turned on the news and heard, or opened a newspaper and saw the screaming headlines: GASOLINE COSTS ARE SKYROCKETING; HOME HEATING OIL PRICES ARE GOING THROUGH THE ROOF; THE ERA OF CHEAP, AFFORDABLE ENERGY IS OVER!!!!
Perhaps, your dad and mom have traded in their gas-guzzling automobile and purchased a hybrid. Many car dealerships are promoting more fuel-efficient cars, and auto factories throughout the nation are starting to make the changes necessary to producing smaller, more gas-efficient vehicles. It’s long overdue. Consider that Europeans have been paying well over $5.00 a gallon for gasoline for years, which has forced them to change their driving habits and the size of the cars they buy.
Well, something else is impossible to miss these days: it’s those great big solar panels on the roof of the middle school building. When the director of PSOLI, Eric Jacobson, decided to do something about the high cost of energy, he must have looked up to the sky and said: “let there be light.” By harnessing the rays of the sun, he must have realized that the Progressive School could save money, reduce its dependence on electricity, help the environment, generate some heat and be cool all at the same time.
Sure, the solar panels were costly, but this is one investment that will pay for itself in time. The solar panels on the roof of our socially responsible school will teach a lesson for anyone willing to open their eyes and minds: the lesson that everyone can do his or her small part to conserve energy, and that it can all add up to something quite electrifying.
Let’s not forget that the solar panels on the roof of the middle school building would not be there today without the help of the PSOLI community. The boys and girls and men and women who put their energies into fundraising, who sacrificed their precious time, who donated their hard-earned money, who believed in solar power and the power of working toward a higher goal deserve a big assist for a job well done. But we can’t just sit back and sun ourselves; there’s much more work to do, and this is just the beginning. Onward and upward!