Students from North Judson-San Pierre High School got an up-close look at Mammoth Solar last week.
The experience was part of a collaboration between the StartedUp Foundation’s Innovation Educator Fellowship, the school’s business program and the Solar Farm Summit’s Student Design Challenge.
Led by business instructor Mollie Dallahan, the students have spent the semester learning about the intersection of food and energy systems. At Mammoth Solar, they toured the facility and met with on-site agrivoltaics farmer Billy Bope. Bope shared examples of how solar energy is integrated with agricultural practices like sheep grazing.
“Our students don’t often get to see opportunities like this,” Dallahan said in a press release. “To hear directly from professionals and see it all in action was a game-changer for them.”
In the coming weeks, students will develop their own solutions to the challenges they observed on-site. Their proposals will serve as their final exam. They will also sumbit their proposals to the national Solar Farm Summit Student Design Challenge Competition.
Select students will be invited to attend the Solar Farm Summit in Chicago this summer. They may get an opportunity to return to Mammoth Solar in August to present their work to professionals in the field.
The Mammoth Solar project has a footprint of 13,000 acres across Starke and Pulaski Counties. Mammoth Solar will generate 1.3 GW of energy, which will power about 275,000 households annually. The project was named “Mammoth” because of mammoth bones discovered in fields where it would be built and because of the size and scope of the project.
