You don't need a science degree to talk to a child about solar. The easiest way in is through something they already know: plants. Ask them what a plant needs to grow, and they'll usually say water and sunlight without missing a beat. Tell them solar panels do something similar. They drink up sunlight too, except instead of turning it into leaves, they turn it into electricity for our classrooms. Next time you're dropping off or picking up, look up at the roof together and ask what they think those panels are doing. Let them guess. The conversation that follows, about where power comes from and why some ways of making it are gentler on the earth than others, tends to go further than anything you'd plan in advance.
That's the whole story, really. A green certification conversation turned into a three-year plan, a summer of construction turned into two solar systems and a battery, and somewhere in the middle of all of it, a four-year-old with a handmade sign reminded us why we started.
