Kids in two science classes at Basalt Middle School in Western Colorado helped town officials cut the ribbon on the school’s new 7.1-kilowatt solar photovoltaic installation earlier this week.

The school earned $10,000 for the installation when the town won the Colorado Association of Ski Town’s contest to eliminate the use of plastic shopping bags last year. The town beat out 30 other towns, saving more than 5.26 million plastic bags from making trips to the landfill.

“I don’t know if you guys know how cool this is,” said Tripp Adams of the Basalt Green Team, which led the effort in the bag challenge and raised additional money for the solar array.

Little voices whispered in the chilly afternoon that they knew it was pretty cool.

Students and teachers had helped to support the bag challenge.

Teacher Jenn Kaughman, who is also a member of the Green Team and helped to hand out re-useable bags at the local market, said that this accomplishment did not exist in a vacuum. It’s just another indicator that kids and community members in Basalt are aware and care about the environment.

She said that students take trips to the landfill each year to see first-hand the impacts of their waste.

She talked about the dangers of coal-fired electrical plants, the primary source of power in Colorado, and how carbon emissions are harmful.

“Even though we don’t see the carbon floating out every time we turn on a light, we know it’s there,” she said.

Basalt, situated in the Roaring Fork Valley of Colorado, gets a significant amount of sun year-round. As visitors drive along Highway 82 between Glenwood Springs and Aspen, they will notice countless solar panels and solar arrays in fields and on buildings sprinkled along the side of the road. It’s, in fact, a little unusual to see a modern building that isn’t fitted with south-facing solar panels.

That makes the valley a good place for students to learn about renewable energy.

Kaughman said she sends her kids on a solar scavenger hunt in the valley each year.

Story continues here.