Educational Outreach Programs

ASU-PTL has been promoting and educating the public about the prospect of alternative energies through its “Community Outreach and Public Educational Program”. A few activities under such program are:
- Photovoltaic modules are provided to community colleges and secondary school to produce hydrogen, to run solar boats, to run lawn movers, to supply water for remote third world country village schools.
- ASU-PTL recently hosted a five-day workshop with short course on fuel cells and solar energy, and laboratory experiments for the NREL Minority University Research Associate (MURA) program.
- ASU Polytechnic has hosted hundreds of tours to the general public, secondary school students, and multiple summer programs to visit the fuel cell and photovoltaic laboratories. The most recent ones were: Arizona Community Foundation with thirty-five students from different schools of the state; Minority Engineering Program of ASU with about thirty students

We intend to expand these activities through workshops and seminars using the outreach databases of Arizona Energy Office. The purpose being to provide background information on photovoltaics, fuel cells, hydrogen properties and the current status of other demonstration projects; and provide interactive exhibits and live demonstrations on Renewable Energies, including hydrogen production and applications, PV applications, etc.

Our ultimate goal, however, is to establish an Alternative Energy Technology Center that will fuel the enhancement of both the academic and educational outreach programs. Such center would be dedicated to recruiting, mentoring, retaining and the placement of students in alternative energy technologies. It would provide hands-on training for system integration related to hydrogen, fuel cell, and solar technologies, including residential fuel cell system based on natural gas and integrated electrolysis fuel cell system; and large and small scale PV systems.