By Palistha (Luvha) Shrestha
Recently, as an API Power Ambassador, I had the opportunity to run the Solar Buddy workshop at my niece’s school – Treeby Primary in WA. She’s always been curious about what I’m studying and where I’m working as I would show her photos from my site visits.
“Running the API x Solar Buddy workshop was a very fulfilling opportunity to show her and her friends a glimpse of what I do!”
The kids were very inquisitive and excited to participate. The room was buzzing with genuine excitement as the kids understood we would be doing ‘something to do with light’.
The students jumped right in sharing plenty of ideas about how the Junior Buddy lights and the PCB’s might work. The teachers were incredibly helpful in providing extra hands and keeping the class focussed. When discussing topics like energy poverty, some students had difficulty relating. The classroom teacher was able to support us by asking age-appropriate thought-provoking questions, especially to a student who shared a recent experience with a power outage at home.
The process of becoming an API Power Ambassador
The process of becoming a power ambassador was very simple and straight-forward. I found the material on how to engage with students particularly useful to organise my points when introducing the workshop. Any questions I had about the process and resources were promptly answered by Stephanie at the API and contacts at SolarBuddy.
The trickiest part was getting in contact with a teacher to organise a workshop. I recommend contacting a teacher or school where you have a connection. Once I made contact, the school was enthusiastic and accommodating, making it easy to set a date.
I highly encourage anyone interested to sign up to be an API Power Ambassador! It’s easy to get lost in your day-to-day routine and forget how exciting our work is. Seeing the children so thrilled to be involved and proud of their creations was incredibly fulfilling.
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