Environment

San Diego High Schools Compete In Solar Cup

By Ed Joyce / Reporter

Published November 6, 2009 at 11:18 AM PST

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

Two San Diego High School teams will compete in a solar-powered boat competition for the first time. The schools get started on the Solar Cup Saturday.

Teams from 36 Southern California high schools build and race 16-foot, one-person solar-powered boats.

The Solar Cup is a seven-month program sponsored by the Metropolitan Water District and its member public water agencies including the San Diego County Water Authority.

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Scripps Ranch High School and the School of Science and Technology each get $4,000 from the water authority and local companies to equip the boats with solar panels and other materials.

Rob Hallwachs with the Metropolitian Water District says the event is more than a race for the students.

"Learning teamwork and problem solving," Hallwachs said. "They have hands-on application of their textbook lessons in science, math and physics."

He says the students and their teachers also attend technical workshops over the next seven months before they race the boats in May at Lake Skinner in Temecula.

The San Diego County high schools get started Saturday when they're given tool chests and kits of pre-cut marine-grade plywood to assemble the boats.

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Ed Joyce was the environment reporter and afternoon news anchor for KPBS-FM. Before joining KPBS, he worked as an editor/columnist with Copley News Service in San Diego. Ed has an extensive background in newspaper, radio, web and TV journalism. After graduating with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Washington in Seattle, Ed began a career in broadcast journalism. His work has included stints in public broadcasting, commercial broadcasting and education -- working as an affiliate professor of communication and reporter at the University of Idaho and Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. During the past 20 years he has worked in radio, TV and print as a news reporter, anchor, writer, editor and producer. Along the way he has won numerous awards for general news reporting, newswriting, feature and issue reporting and breaking news reporting from The Associated Press, The Society of Professional Journalists, San Diego Press Club and other organizations. During the mid-1990s, while working for Oregon Public Broadcasting, he was a frequent contributor to National Public Radio, including a feature report on the memorial service for 14 U.S. Forest Service "hotshots" who died fighting a wildfire in Colorado (the crew was based in a central Oregon town). He’s also filed reports with Marketplace, KQED’s California Report and Climate Watch and with national and regional networks throughout the United States. At KPBS, Ed continues his contributions to National Public Radio and other national and regional news organizations. He has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and San Diego Press Club for his environmental reporting at KPBS-FM-TV and for producing and anchoring radio newscasts. In 2007 he was selected a National Press Foundation fellow for Understanding Violent Weather II program. The seminars were held at the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla. In 2008 he spoke at a UC San Diego conference on U.S. National Security as part of the school’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Ed led a discussion with the 18 foreign government officials and academics about the political debate over climate change. In 2010, Ed was elected to a three-year term on the board of the San Diego Press Club.

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