Essex Tech Educational Partner Honored by Project Green Schools for Sustainability Work
HATHORNE – Superintendent Dr. Heidi Riccio and Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical School are pleased to share that Educational Partner Jim Bauer has received an Energy Award from Project Green Schools.
Bauer, founder and CEO of Clean Power & Light, has worked with Essex Tech for more than four years to implement sustainable and renewable energy. Bauer also works with Essex Tech on school-based applied learning projects, new career pathways, and revisions to Career Technical Education curriculum frameworks to integrate sustainability.
Bauer advised the District on numerous sustainability projects, including electric vehicle (EV) campus charging stations and project-based learning focusing on sustainability through funding from Mass IDEAS (Innovative Designs in Education for All Students).
Bauer worked with the District and its legislative delegation toward passage of a bill that will allow the District to sign a lease agreement of up to 25 years with Danvers Electric and third-party investors to provide green renewable energy. This will be the first renewable energy agreement in Massachusetts partnering a public agency and municipal light district.
Jim Bauer, third from left, Educational Partner with Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical School, and Essex Tech students testify before a legislative panel at the Statehouse in Boston.
Bauer also served as a liaison between the District and Bio360 for a feasibility study by 40 students for viability and technology in anaerobic digestion, composting laws, general sustainability in Agriculture and food management.
Project Green Schools honored Bauer and other recipients during its Annual Green Difference Awards, held virtually on May 27.
“The credit here goes to Superintendent Riccio, the ENSATS teachers and staff, and above all the students for pioneering and supporting many of these efforts, and for the interest and enthusiasm they have displayed for clean energy and sustainability,” Bauer said. “We are, all of us, interested in making this a better world for ourselves and those who follow, and we are seeing first hand how that can be done with the focus, talent, creativity, energy and enthusiasm coming out of ENSATS. It has been and will continue to be inspiring working with them.”
“Jim has had a tremendous impact on Essex Tech and its students, and we’re thrilled that he is being honored with this much-deserved award,” Superintendent Riccio said, “Through his work, Essex Tech students will be able to investigate sustainability as part of curriculum and choose career pathways into sustainable/renewable careers.”