Ernst Community Classroom located @ 1580 Scott Lake Rd in Waterford, MI 48328
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Informal Meeting: Thursday, April 28, 2011 12:00AM (John Cudnohufsky)
Brief informal show and tell opportunity with some additional potentially partnered collaborators.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Aligns to OUR Purpose (By Design)
Bold ideas: Online study, payouts
Snyder‘s education plan has innovative reforms to reward schools’ success
Gov. Rick Snyder will propose Wednesday financial rewards to individual schools that show exceptional academic progress.
The money could be divided among the teachers or used in other ways they choose, according to a source familiar with the plan.
It’s among reforms in a special message on education Snyder will deliver at 10 a.m. at the United Way for Southeastern Michigan in Detroit. Snyder also wants to allow students to choose online classes they can complete at home or other sites, rather than comply with state rules that they be in a classroom at least 1,098 hours a year. “There are some kids who learn better reading and looking at words than they do listening to a lecture,” said Bill Rustem, Snyder’s director of strategy. Rustem said it would be up to school districts to set guidelines for online programs, which education experts say can work well for both advanced students and those who perform poorly in traditional classes. Snyder also will call for changes in teacher tenure laws and charter schools in his education message. He delivered a similar address on local government reforms in March.
Best way to track results is measuring, Snyder says
Educators need more incentives, training
EAST LANSING — Gov. Rick Snyder told several hundred educators Monday to get used to the idea of measuring students’ performance. He’ll talk a lot about that Wednesday, he said, when he delivers his special message on education in Detroit. “We have to put much more emphasis on proficiency, on growth, on measurements and results than we have had in the past,” Snyder told the Governor’s Education Summit, an annual gathering of mostly teachers and school officials. “It’s about really delivering results for these kids, to show the whole system needs to be geared to say each child gets a good year’s education each and every year.” He said teachers and administrators must be given more incentives and training to improve the schools. “The way to approach it is not to get down on people, it’s not to approach it with blame,” he said. “It’s not (to) be negative with one another. It’s about how we look to the future and be positive and build on that as an opportunity to succeed together.” That means more autonomy for individual schools and teachers, and a system to financially reward outstandingteachers who can mentor others, he said. State schools Superintendent Michael Flanagan called for a deregulation of schools, such as eliminating minimum numbers of hours or days students must attend each year. Instead, schools would set their own guidelines for studentsto meet state academic goals. “My goal is to take away as many regulations as we can but hold people accountable for academic growth,” Flanagan said. A person familiar with Snyder’s plan said the governor won’t call for eliminating the minimum hours requirement, but will ask to give districts options, such as online learning programs for some students. Snyder’s speech is much anticipated, as the Legislature wrestles with how much to cut from state aid to school districts. Snyder has called for $300 per pupil less than the current year for all districts, but the Republican-controlled House and Senate are considering slightly different cuts. Snyder has often spoken of moving to an education culture that depends more on measured outcomes than on debates over money. He also will talk about an education system that begins with prenatal care programs. “I hope he will set some big audacious academic goals for us to accomplish in Michigan like they have done in other Midwestern states like Missouri, Kentucky and Illinois,” said Carol Goss, president and CEO of the Skillman Foundation, in a response to the Free Press. She has met with Snyder to discuss education ideas. She said she hopes Snyder will propose more public-private partnerships, more accountability, and giving students more career alternatives than going to college, which does not suit some. In his remarks Monday, Snyder pointed to the United Way’s early childhood programs as an example of how the state could join with private ventures. Snyder also has met twice with philanthropist Eli Broad, a Michigan native and head of the Broad Foundation , which has aggressively funded some education initiatives. “They talked about using their expertise in education to help supplement what we’re doing to get a handle on not only the Detroit school system, but other public school districts, and what kind of innovative practices are out there,” said Snyder’s chief of staff Dennis Muchmore. Democrats, who’ve sharply criticized Snyder for his proposed cuts to schools and universities, were wary about his Wednesday speech. “I’m ready to work with the governor if he’s serious about giving our children a quality education, but his actions are speaking louder than his words,” said Rep. Lisa Brown, D-West Bloomfield, minority vice chair of the House Education Committee.
“The way to approach it is not to get down on people, it’s not to approach it with blame,” Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said Wednesday of measuring student performance. He spoke at the Governor’s Education Summit in East Lansing.
Something GREEN to Aspire Too!
A TRIBUTE TO GREEN LEADERS
Green is good. Green is smart. And green is profitable. That was the mantra Thursday morning, led by Gov. Rick Snyder’s keynote speech, at the second annual Free Press Michigan Green Leaders awards breakfast at DTE Energy headquarters in Detroit. A full house of 450 cheered the reach of conservation in the state, with honorees ranging from iconic figures such as U.S. Rep John Dingell to Alex Kozlowski, a college student who recycles bottles and cans for charity. “Today’s honorees show that green and business go together,” Ford Motor Executive Chairman Bill Ford said as he introduced Snyder. • AWARDS BREAKFAST, EXPO LOOK TO A GREEN FUTURE . 8A
Ford Motor Executive Chairman Bill Ford, in front, applauds at the Green Leaders breakfast Thursday. At right are Gerry Anderson, CEO of DTE, which received an honorable mention, and U.S. Rep. John Dingell, the Dearborn Democrat who was one of the honorees.
Award winners, events lead to greener future
It was a celebration of all green-minded people, companies and ideas. More than 500 Michiganders attended Thursday’s Free Press Michigan Green Leaders awards breakfast and expo at DTE Energy’s Detroit headquarters. Sixteen companies, organizations and individuals received a Green Leaders award. Winners were chosen by a panel of independent judges. Delivering the keynote address, Gov. Rick Snyder challenged his audience to do even more to create a sustainable state. “You’re leaders in this field,” Snyder told the audience. “And leaders don’t want to stop. What other work can you do?” He called for “relentless positive action.” Introducing Snyder, Ford Motor Executive Chairman Bill Ford spoke of how far Michigan has come toward a greener consciousness. “I love the fact that we’re actually talking about green leadership in an old-line industrial area,” Ford, a 2010 Michigan Green Leader, told the audience. “A few years ago that wouldn’t have happened. People thought I was some sort of communist. Today’s honorees show that green and business go together.” Snyder urged, “Let’s find the common ground where we can do green things together.” Those gathered as honorees included U.S. Rep. John Dingell, a Dearborn Democrat, as well as representatives of companies including Steelcase, Detroit Diesel, LG Chem and other, smaller operations . They also included activist individuals and groups such as Ann Arbor’s Ecology Center, creating a mix of people all interested in conservation and a sustainable economy, even if they often have been on the opposite sides of issues. Addressing the winners, Snyder said, “What we need now to do is use you as role models.” After the 16 honorees received their awards, Dingell told the audience, “We do not own this land. We inherit it from those who follow us, and it’s our duty to return it in as good as shape as we got it, or hopefully better.” Free Press Editor and Publisher Paul Anger concluded the breakfast by riffing on a popular Chrysler commercial. He told the audience, “There is no other program like this that we’ve been able to find anywhere else in the country. ... To paraphrase: This is Detroit, and this is what we do.” In tandem with the sold-out awards breakfast, held for the second year, the Free Press also held its first free expo. It featured exhibits by a dozen companies and nonprofit organizations, including Meijer and Maggie’s Organics. Another was LaFontaine Cadillac Buick GMC, which earned an honorable mention in the green building category. Cristal Holston came to the expo to attend a seminar by the Greening of Detroit because she wanted to start a community garden in her neighborhood on Detroit’s west side. “If we do it as a community garden, anyone who wants something or needs something can come and get it,” she said. “I love gardening.” The expo also attracted people such as Lawrence Roberson, who attended a presentation by the Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association. Roberson said he plans to buy a hybrid car and is looking into ways to power his Southfield home using solar or wind energy. “I’m really excited about green technologies,” the money and financial manager said. “If we aren’t interested, we are stupid.” • CONTACT JOHN GALLAGHER: 313-222-5173 OR GALLAGHER99@FREEPRESS.COM
Pam Frucci of Grosse Ile checks out vegetable seeds from Meijer at the environmental expo that followed the Green Leaders tribute breakfast Thursday in Detroit.
Free Press columnist Tom Walsh congratulates Sister Gloria Rivera and Sister Paula Cathcart of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Motherhouse in Monroe.
Gov. Rick Snyder gives the breakfast’s keynote address.
Randy Essex of the Free Press presents former Gov. William Milliken’s award to his son, Bill Jr.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
On Creating a Culture of Innovation in the U.S
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/04/can-washington-lead-an-innovation-revolution-in-an-age-of-deficits/237396/
Solar Energy Innovation Breakthrough?
Solar power: breakthrough could herald big drop in costs
Solar power is generated by photovoltaic cells, but two scientists are exploring different materials that could foster voltage from light's magnetic effects.
Scientists at the University of Michigan have discovered a new effect from an old property of light, which they say could lead to an "optical battery" that converts sunlight to electricity at a fraction of the cost of today's photovoltaic cells.
Light has electric and magnetic qualities. Scientists had long thought, however, that the effects of light's magnetic field were so weak as to be irrelevant.
No so, says Stephen Rand, a professor of physics. Along with doctoral student William Fisher, he persisted in probing the long-ignored weak magnetic field that light produces when traveling through a nonconductive material, such as glass.
The breakthrough – unveiled Friday in a scientific paper in the Journal of Applied Physics – shows that if light is intense enough, it can, when traveling through nonconductive material, generate voltage from magnetic effects 100 million times stronger than earlier expected. Such magnetic effects produce a strong electric field that can be harnessed for electric power production, Dr. Rand and Mr. Fisher say.
“This could lead to a new kind of solar cell without semiconductors and without absorption to produce charge separation,” Rand said in a statement. “In solar cells, the light goes into a material, gets absorbed and creates heat. Here, we expect to have a very low heat load. Instead of the light being absorbed, energy is stored in the magnetic moment.”
He continues, “Intense magnetization can be induced by intense light and then it is ultimately capable of providing a capacitive power source.”
Of course with every scientific breakthrough, there's the challenge of how to make it practical. In this case, the problem is that the intensity of the light must be about 10 million watts per square centimeter. Ordinary sunlight is much less than even one watt per square centimeter.
But that doesn't deter Fisher, who says that new materials (transparent ceramics, perhaps), when combined with focused sunlight, could work at lesser intensities.
“We show that sunlight is theoretically almost as effective in producing charge separation as laser light is,” says Fisher in a phone interview. "It turns out we can in principle develop a voltage along the direction of the beam of light.”
He adds, “Enough sunlight, focused into an optical fiber, could generate electricity – that’s is a simple way to think about it."
In experiments planned for this summer, the two scientists plan to harness this power using laser light and – after that – sunlight. Fisher says that with improved materials (various kinds of glass, for example), sunlight could produce electricity at perhaps 10 percent efficiency – roughly equal to the rate at which commercial solar cells today convert sunlight to electricity.
"The breakthrough is really on the cost side," Fisher says. “All we need are lenses to focus the light and a fiber to guide it. Glass is made in bulk, and it doesn’t require much processing, either.”
But the breakthrough is unlikely to be implemented in solar power production for several years, perhaps even a decade, Fisher cautions. Yet he does not foresee any hurdles that can't be overcome.
"It's doable," he says.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
What's Old is New Again!
Wednesday, Apr. 06, 2011
The Surprisingly Long History of Green Energy
Green technology has no history — which isn't to say that it has no past. For many Americans the subject sprang into being a few years ago, maybe around the time the Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth hit theaters, or when they first saw (but didn't hear) a modest Toyota Prius curling around the corner. Sure, a small group of people cared about solar water heaters or wind turbines back in the 1970s, when we can remember then President Jimmy Carter telling America to turn down the thermostat and put on a sweater. But green tech is widely considered to be the stuff of the future, there to clean up an economy that has been inexorably built on fossil fuels — on coal, oil and gasoline-powered automobiles.
Except, that's not true. Before New York City ever had its yellow fleet of gas-guzzling taxis — and way before Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to force those drivers to go hybrid — there was a thriving electric-taxi company at the turn of the 20th century that served the entire metropolis. Windmills helped transform the American West in the 1800s, providing power for irrigation — and setting the stage for wind power's resurgence a century later. There was no guarantee that electricity would win out over less-polluting compressed air as a way to transmit energy over long distances. Californians were entranced by the potential of wave power in the early 1900s, and solar water heaters used to be common in the early 1900s. (See the top 20 green tech ideas.)
Far from being a recent phenomenon, Americans have been trying to go green for decades. Yet our modern society ended up being based on the idea of cheap, inexhaustible energy from fossil fuels, a decision we're living to rue. "The fossil-fueled economy of the twentieth century had a tendency to pave over alternatives to itself, leaving only curious hints of worlds that might have been," writes Alexis Madrigal in his excellent new book, Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology. "Green technology has been a viable set of technologies for more than one hundred years but, regardless, supplies little of America's energy."
The question Madrigal — a senior editor at the Atlantic — sets out to answer in Powering the Dream is, simply, Why? Why did the U.S. develop an energy system — and an economy — built around fossil fuels like oil and coal as opposed to renewable power, centralized electrical utilities over distributed generation? We assume that it had to be this way — that fossil fuels and suburbia were simply so superior to a greener system that their triumph was inevitable. But that's not the case. Technology doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is influenced by society — and society, as Madrigal points out, can and does change, which gives us hope for the future. (See pictures of four cities' creative and technological energy.)
There were early prophets for what could have been a different America. Madrigal introduces us to John Etzler, a quirky writer who was "probably crazy, but not so much more than your average futurist." Etzler wrote a book in the 1830s — called The Paradise Within the Reach of All Men, Without Labor, by Powers of Nature and Machinery: An Address to All Intelligent Men — that could have come from the desk of Al Gore. At a time when steam locomotives were just beginning to be built, Etzler was hailing the ability of the wind, the sun and the waves to power a growing America.
The book was out there — Etzler included in the volume an address to then President Andrew Jackson — but in many ways he was anticipating the need for a technological solution to our energy and climate concerns, not just a philosophical one. Madrigal draws the comparison to Henry David Thoreau, whose writings — including Walden — inspired environmentalists who believed that small was beautiful and turned away from technology. That's a strategy that might work to protect Walden Pond, but it can't solve the larger global environmental challenges — climate change, the resource crisis — that now plague the planet. For that you need man-made technology — but it has to be the right kind. "The global environment has become an unintentional 'garden,' and humans have to manage it," writes Madrigal. "High-tech, low-carbon technologies seem to be the only way to preserve Thoreau's flowers." (Could shale gas power the world?)
The problem is that we've never really supported the right technologies. Madrigal shows that American policy toward green energy has been a mess, long before this new batch of Republicans went into Congress fixed on dismantling environmental protections. The 1970s saw a burst of meaningful research into wind, solar and other alternatives, all motivated by the sudden spike in energy costs and the dawning realization of the environmental crisis. But after Ronald Reagan swept into office and oil prices dropped, that research was discontinued — thanks chiefly to opposition from the Republicans — even as scientists were on the brink of breakthroughs. Meanwhile, nuclear power was the recipient of generous government largesse for decades (and still is), while utilities in the postwar era got Americans hooked on cheap power and helped enable the growth of air-conditioning, suburbia and electronic gadgets.
In fact, it's not fair to say that green power failed — given the rules of the game, it never really had a chance.
The question now is whether we can do better in the future. As President Barack Obama said in a speech last month, "We cannot keep going from shock to trance on the issue of energy security," demanding quick fixes when gas prices rise and then slipping back into complacency when they fall. From his reading of history, Madrigal suggests a policy of countercyclical investment by the government, ensuring that there is public research money and subsidies available for green energy during those fallow periods when the private markets go missing. (See how fundraising helped shape Obama's green agenda.)
That money should come with certain strings, requiring green innovators to make their data public, so the movement can benefit even if a single machine fails. (The ability to learn, Madrigal points out, is the difference between failing well as an innovator and failing badly.) Environmentalists might have to make some compromises as well. If green tech is going to make a difference, it's going to need to be big — corporate big. It would be a worthwhile trade. "Green technology gives environmentalism the material means to build a better civilization as well as the political potency and clarity of purpose that comes with the need to make new things," Madrigal writes. The good thing about green history is that we're not doomed to repeat it — once we've learned from it.
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