Hosford Middle School

MLS WORKS, the sustainability arm of Major League Soccer, became a Solar 4R Schools program partner in 2013. In partnership with its sponsor Continental Tire, MLS WORKS collaborated with the Solar 4R Schools team identify and provide a Renewable School project to Hosford Middle School.

As a Renewable School, Hosford Middle School is building a dedicated community of renewable energy educators, generating clean energy through their 3-kilowatt photovoltaic system and leveraging the system's performance data as an educational tool to bring energy topics to life in their classrooms. This PV system is installed in the schoolyard and provides a real-world example of solar energy technology for students and visitors. Hosting this system helps educators to discuss the critical and complex energy principles that will help shape our future and theirs

At the time of the project, energy monitoring and interactive kiosk allowed visitors, students and teachers to interact with live system performance data while learning about the science and benefits of renewable energy.

In 2013, educators within Hosford Middle School received a customized renewable energy teacher training, hands-on science kit materials to augment the school's existing curricula, and complete access to the resources available on the Solar4RSchools.org website. To optimize integration of renewable energy science and technology content, every aspect of the support provided by Solar 4R Schools was customized to fit the unique focus of the school community, including topics covered in the teacher training as well as our recommendations for activities and science kit materials to make integration of this new content as efficient as possible.