Educational Efforts In Clean Energy

BRIDGEPORT — Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo, the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund (CCEF), and Clean Air-Cool Planet (CA-CP) will embark on a two-year project to develop educational programs and tools to help the public learn about clean energy as a solution to climate change. The project represents an important collaboration of individual science centers that will join together to address a statewide issue.

Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo is one of ten centers participating in the project, which will evaluate tools for teaching people about clean energy.

“Climate change seems like such an insurmountable problem, but once people become aware that it’s really a matter of making smart energy choices, they feel empowered to do something and that can really make a difference,” said Lisa Tryon, the zoo’s director of conservation education, one of the educators who met recently at the Peabody Museum in New Haven to review educational products designed to help teach people about clean energy.

The May 31 meeting was the beginning of a process in which centers will test a variety of off-the-shelf products to learn what resonates with their visitors — part of the first phase of the Connecticut Science Center Collaborative’s “Clean Energy Climate Solutions Project.” This project is administered by CA-CP and made possible by a $325,000 grant received from CCEF.

 “The goal of the project is to increase the public’s awareness of clean energy as a solution to climate change,” according to Bryan Garcia, director of energy market initiatives at The Connecticut Clean Energy Fund. “As more and more people understand the benefits of clean energy and learn about its availability, we should see a dramatic increase in demand — promoting a similar increase in supply.”

Clean energy is energy produced without releasing greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, such as energy produced from wind, solar, and hydropower systems.

Over the next two years, the ten participating member centers of the Connecticut Science Center Collaborative (CSCC) will test and evaluate existing clean energy educational programs and products to determine what is effective, and then adapt the best of what they find for use by science centers throughout the state, according to Karin Jakubowski of CA-CP, who is coordinator for the collaborative.

Angela Perondi-Pitel, program associate at CCEF, said, “The team that will implement the Clean Energy Climate Solutions Project will build upon and incorporate insights gained from scientists and educators at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which the team visited earlier this year in Golden, Colo.”

CCEF was created by the Connecticut General Assembly and is administered by Connecticut Innovations, a quasi-public organization. CCEF promotes the development and commercialization of clean energy technologies; the creation of clean energy supply; and the demand for electricity from clean, renewable sources in Connecticut in order to strengthen Connecticut’s economy, protect community health, improve the environment, and promote a secure energy supply for the state. CCEF’s funding comes from a surcharge on electric ratepayers’ utility bills.

Clean Air-Cool Planet is a nonprofit organization with offices in New Hampshire and New Canaan that is dedicated to creating partnerships in the Northeast to implement solutions to climate change and build constituencies for effective climate policies and actions.

CSCC is a chapter of the Northeast Science Center Collaborative. CSCC combines the latest scientific findings of research and academic institutions with the interpretive expertise of science centers to develop exhibits, educational content, and outreach projects for the more than three million annual visitors of its members: more than 25 science education and research institutions, museums and nonprofit organizations in Connecticut.

Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo is open year-round and exhibits primarily North and South American animals, including many endangered and threatened species. Highlights include a Tropical Rainforest, New England Farmyard, Alligator Alley aviary, Carousel, and Victorian Greenhouse.

The zoo is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). With its more than 200 accredited members, AZA is a leader in global wildlife conservation, and the public’s link to helping animals in their native habitats. For more information, visit aza.org.