UW Students Plan Solar Panels on Campus Bus Stops
UW students plan solar panels on campus bus stops
BY CAROLINE CROWLEY
Helios and Enactus, two student organizations at UW-Madison, are installing solar panels on the roofs of campus bus shelters. The panels will power screens that display bus arrivals and departures, according to Ian Aley, the Green Fund program manager.
The project is backed by the Green Fund, a campus organization that supports sustainability at UW-Madison.
Listen to four students — Atilla Veyssal, Simon Brooks, Jack Audi and Tanner Wagner-Durr — discuss their thoughts on the clean energy project.
To learn more about Helios, click here.
To learn more about Enactus, click here.
Transcript
Caroline Crowley: Helios and Enactus, two student organizations at UW-Madison, are installing solar panels on the roofs of campus bus shelters. The panels will power screens that display bus arrivals and departures, according to Ian Aley, the Green Fund program manager.
Crowley: The project is backed by the Green Fund, a campus organization that supports sustainability at UW-Madison.
Crowley: Atilla Veyssal, a UW student and the business lead of Helios, thinks the project will inspire other UW students to view clean energy as a solution in the future.
Veyssal: With such a congregate community of students that will be one day entering the workforce, being able to see efforts of sustainable projects around may be inspiring for them.
Crowley: This vision of clean energy is especially important now, says Simon Brooks, a UW student and the president of Helios.
Brooks: It’s the future. Period … You know, we’re on track to see a lot of global warming and weather changes and all this stuff, so … the time is now for clean energy.
Crowley: For students who want to see more clean energy in the future, Jack Audi, a UW student and the engineering lead at Helios, says one path of action is supporting environmentalism through political action.
Audi: Taking stock in environmental consciousness in the political candidates that you vote for I think is really powerful. … I think if you really like prioritize that way of thinking and being sustainable in, in a lot of the different things that you do, I think supporting political candidates who uplift that goal I think is really important.
Crowley: Sometimes, though, it can be difficult to take on a worldwide problem. Instead of taking large leaps toward 100% clean energy, small improvements can create change, too, according to Tanner Wagner-Durr, the project manager for Sol Solutions at Enactus.
Wagner-Durr: Start with the education … And then once you have that background, you know start taking some action … Start small if you can’t start big, everyone starts somewhere.
Last updated Nov. 11, 2021.
Clean Energy in Madison 