Episode 4: Lighting the Way

Episode 4 – Lighting the Way (w/ musical interlude by Kayla Trites) 

I sat down with Riverview High School educator Ian Fogarty, as well as his students Beth Stevens, Brooklyn Kane, and Kaleigh Burgeois to talk about the after-school program Current Generation.  

Ian has developed the Current Generation program at RHS as a way to encourage students to bring what they’re learning in the classroom (Ian teaches both chemistry and physics) into the real world to solve real problems. 

For the last couple of years, Current Generation has been designing, engineering, building and distributing mini solar-charged LED lights around the globe to those who live in light poverty.  The students work together as a team, but also collaborate with other groups of students around the world, as well as their field testers, to constantly try to improve the design and efficiency of the lights so they suit the particular situation of the end-user.  (When I first met Ian, he told me that one issue that cropped up was that the angle of the mini solar panel on the top of the light unit wasn’t gathering enough light for some users in Sierra Leone, so the students had to redesign and build a light to account for the angle of the sun in that locale!) 

As you’ll hear, the program is about more than making lights; global citizenship, philanthropy, collaboration, critical thinking, communication and a host of other skills are picked up by the students. 

The musical interlude in this episode was provided by RHS student Kayla Trites.  Kayla has an exceptional voice, and here she sings “Someone to Lava”. 

Links: 

Current Generation:  https://www.currentgeneration.org/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/can_gen 

Ian can be reached at: [email protected] 

Ian’s blog: http://foggs.ca/wp/