Climate 101

"This generation will live another 60 years and they will reap the devastating consequences of climate change and scarce resources," said Peter Martin, a 50-year-old technical teacher from the Ingeborg-Drewitz secondary school in Gladbeck in Germany’s Ruhr Valley.

The first lesson of the day starts with a small wooden blackboard, which is attached to a batch of red and blue wires and a measuring instrument. He then shows the students how a single solar cell functions before applying it to a huge photovoltaic network.

More than 40 square meters (431,000 square feet) of solar panels, installed by the students themselves, cover the roof of their school. Since 2003, solar power has supplied a significant portion of the school building's energy needs and has reduced carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels by 1,400 kilos (3,100 pounds).

"This is not just about conserving energy," clarified Peter Martin. "I wanted to make the kids more aware of environmental problems and what technical innovation can do to address them," he said.

Greater potential for solar power

The school in Zambia, which has an exchange program with the Ingeborg-Drewitz school, also profits from Martin's lesson. This past summer, a small delegation of teachers and pupils travelled to Macha, a southern province in Zambia, to install solar panels on the rooftops of Macha Secondary School and St. Mark's Secondary School.

"Zambia gets twice the amount of sunlight than Germany does, so the potential for solar power there is even greater," said another teacher, Guntram Seippel, who added that electrical power in Zambia is unreliable.

"Blackouts are common," he said. "Solar installations on the other hand, will enable our partner schools to become more energy independent."

A question of priorities

But protecting the environment, where 80 percent of the population lives on less than one dollar a day, is not exactly a top priority in Zambia.

"They use primitive wood-based fuel for heating and cooking, which is of course a huge burden on the environment," said Seippel. "And Zambia has so few power generators in the entire country, so they need alternative energy sources."

Julia von Gradowski, a student from Germany who was part of the delegation, said that when she sees news reports about catastrophic floods and hurricanes on television, she is worried that the damage to the environment is already irreparable.

"But we all still need to get our act together to change the way we live and use energy," she said.