 Aloha. Welcome to Think Tech, Hawaii. Before we begin, I would like to take a moment to offer condolences to the family and friends of Representative Mark Tokai, who passed away this morning at his home with his family. Mark was a model. He was an inspiration to many. And he was a true representative of and for the people, and he will be missed. So let's take a quick moment of silence for him before we move on. As you can see, Mark has appeared on Think Tech, Hawaii, Iowa, a number of times. Here, you can see here with J. F. I. Dell, Community Matters. Again, he was a great representative for the people and he was available. He made himself available to everyone, and he would look people in the eyes and listen to them. And that was, I think, the greatest thing I learned from him is remember to listen. Okay, so, all right, back into our show. So welcome to another episode of Think Tech, Hawaii's Education Movers, Shakers, and Reformers. I'm your host, Carl Campania. Many people believe that education can be the silver bullet or the linchpin that can help solve problems like homelessness, drug addiction, social division, and income inequality. And in Hawaii, where our many intertwined cultures cherish our keiki and do all we can to open doors for their successes, we assume that a high priority is placed on having a world-class educational system. But is it? On this show, we talk about the programs available to our keiki, the quality of our facilities and infrastructure, addressing deferred maintenance, increasing the number of cool rooms for our keiki and teachers, a more comprehensive curriculum approach, as well as appropriately recognizing and valuing our teachers and administrative staff. And perhaps most importantly, what life and career opportunities are we providing for our keiki to thrive today and into the future? Welcome to the show. Today's guest is Ms. Chelsea Harder from Hawaii Energy. Specifically, Chelsea is a market transformation specialist. We're going to learn a bit what that means. Today we'll be talking about energy education for students and teachers from pre-K through PhD, as well as the RISE program and much more. So again, welcome to the show. And welcome, Chelsea. Thank you, Carl. Thank you for joining us. Appreciate that. It's good to be here. All right, so and also thank you for joining us on this day when we have to remember our representative, Mark Decay. He meant a lot to a lot of people, so I appreciate you being here today as well. All right, so tell us a little bit about, first let's start about yourself. What's your background and tell us a little bit then about your job? Sure. I am a former engineer and educator from Minnesota. I came over here after my service in the Peace Corps when I fell in love with education and became an educator. So I worked at grades four through 20 in the STEM subjects, so science, technology, engineering and math. That's a huge important area we know of its importance. It's become so important to so many people that they're almost excluding other things, which I think is kind of a problem. So you being a STEM person gives your quick thought on, if you would. Well, I very much appreciate the STEM fields. They're very important, especially with all this increase in technology. But there's also components that are being missed, like the arts, the music and physical education, being outside. So I think that integrating everything is really what we need to do. I understand the focus, but in that we need to inspire others to get on the bandwagon. Also because there are different ways of learning. Absolutely, absolutely. So providing kids different opportunities, you get to learn more what they're good at. So we can try to get behind them and support them in those areas. Right. If they have a passion in the arts or a passion in literature, they can be the storyteller or someone who makes this inspiring piece that gets people to be that change. Excellent. So we both share a Midwest lineage. Exactly. So we get that. Back in my day, I was required to have physical education every day. Me too. You too. Really? Today they have maybe two or three times a week. It depends. They do other things. So it's interesting. That's one of the things that they don't do every day. But anyway, so yeah, so yeah, we do share that Midwest. I'm originally from Chicago. Okay, so first of all, thank you for being an educator. And what I have learned over the years, first of all, and then over the past several months of doing the show, is the educators are people who are passionate about the idea of teaching. Passionate about helping students achieve. Absolutely. Well, I come from a long line of educators. My parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, it's just, it's in our blood. We're really motivated to help grow and develop people into what they want to be. That's excellent. That's excellent. So well, thank you for doing that. But you're not doing that right now. I'm not. I'm actually, so my role at Hawaii Energy is the market transformation specialist. So back up a little bit, Hawaii Energy is the energy efficiency and conservation program. So what we do for this state is we educate, motivate, and incentivize people to adopt energy efficiency practices. That's in connection with the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, our 100% clean energy goal by 2045, which is one of the most aggressive goals, if not the most aggressive in our nation. It is, and it requires a combination of energy efficiency, which is what Hawaii Energy works on as well as renewables. Absolutely. So the energy efficiency will help increase that renewable integration. So our demand right now is so large, the amount of energy that we're using. We need to bring that down so that we don't have to integrate so many new renewables. Right, right. Years, I spend years as well in the renewable energy area. And I know that every time we would go into a new facility and talk with them about a potential solar idea for them, we always would begin with that initial assessment of, okay, what can we reduce? Because honestly, your load is so large, we're not able to put enough panels on your roof. We can't put enough PV panels on your roof to really address your full load. So what can we reduce to really make this, you know, the most positive impact? Right, a common problem. And then it also, you know, there's a lot of solar energy coming in during the day, but at night you need to pull from the grid. So if you have a lot of panels, it does offset the grid as well. So another reason to go energy efficient. Exactly, exactly. No, that's wonderful. I know there's a lot of technology as well as a lot of equipment these days that are more energy efficient. And I know that one of the programs that Hawaii Energy has offered is if your refrigerator is of a certain age, you'll take it and like give us 50 bucks, I think. Absolutely, yeah. The older the refrigerator is, the more load it's going to pull. So if you upgrade to a new efficient refrigerator, we have a program where we'll either take your old one or we'll give you money to swap out for a new one. Sure, sure, sure. And that's great. I know for a fact this works because they took one of my refrigerators away and they sent me 50 dollars. So it was really nice. I appreciate it. So yes, definitely look into that Hawaii Energy. All right, so tell us a bit more, let's learn a bit more about Hawaii Energy. Let's learn a bit more about some of the educational aspects and programs. Let's start with the programs and go into the education. Absolutely, so to finish my thought on market transformation, it is essentially strategic interventions to change the market. So what we're doing is looking at what's there, what kind of market channels are existing and how do we leverage those resources and those collaborators to make a bigger impact. That's a lot of words. I understood that. However, how can you rephrase that in smaller words, in smaller, less jargon words? Sure, so we are the helpers with the tools to help shape the system to better help people be more energy efficient. So that's a lot of words. Market transformation, so you're trying to find opportunities, funding opportunities, you're trying to find technology opportunities, you're trying to find a number of ways to bring about a better solution for the general public to bring energy costs down. Absolutely, absolutely. And focus on collaboration as well. We have a lot of wonderful programs in Hawaii here and they may be siloed, they may start to be integrated, but we want to make sure that things are streamlined so we can help Hawaii the best we can achieve our goals. Maybe you can't speak to this, but I know some people are curious about how Hawaii Energy came to be and how it's funded. Sure, so originally it was part of HECO and it was the energy efficiency component with education as well. And it's split off into Hawaii Energy in 2009. So we are a separate entity from HECO at this time and we are under the direction of the PUC. So we get our money from ratepayers. So anybody that pays an electric bill, whether you're a business, large, medium, small or an institution or a resident, you have a small surcharge at the bottom of your bill and that's 1.5%. So that small portion goes to the Public Utilities Commission, which then gives us some of that money to run our programs. So essentially we're all paying for Hawaii Energy to exist and for the programs. So if we aren't taking advantage of the programs, then we're not getting any money back. So all the money we're paying in through our bill, we would be getting some back if we take advantage of your program. Yes, it would behoove everyone to be a part of this program. Okay, give me a listing of, I don't know, your top couple favorite programs that you have. Well, the refrigerator exchange ones, but I'm particularly have favorites in the market transformation sector. So we focus on education, we have a fellowship program, we have a teacher training program, a multitude of things. Excellent. That was the perfect transition that I was hoping for. And we move into, the reason you're here is not to talk about Hawaii Energy and Energy is to talk about how this plays a role in education. Yes. Education for our kids, education for our teachers and education for our community. And that sort of encompasses all of that, right? Yes. So okay, what are those programs called? Are there names? Are there titles of those programs? Sure, we'll start with the fellowship program. We just call it the Hawaii Energy Fellowship. So we take college students and recent graduates and we give them experience in the energy industry. It is an aging workforce. We have a lot of people that are getting ready to retire and nobody to fill in, or not enough people to fill in those gaps. And a lot of complaints that we get from people in any industry, they're saying our students aren't prepared enough to be in the job and to be in the workforce. So what we want to do is give them that real world education. In addition to that academic education. And that's through the RISE program, correct? Yes, through KUPU RISE. They're excellent partners. RISE stands for Rewarding Internships for Sustainable Employment. That's spectacular. Okay, so that's great. We'll go into that a bit more. So what are some of the other programs that you've got? Well, we have a teacher education program. We collaborate with the National Energy Education Development Project. So need to be short. National Energy Education Development Project. Yes, yes. We just call it need P. We just call it need. It's simple. Right, right. They have over 35 years experience of developing energy education, whether it be for efficiency, for renewables. And it's very robust and they help people not only bring it into the classrooms, but take it out of the classrooms and into the community. So they've been excellent partners in some things that we want to do here. Is it part of the energy challenge that my kids bring home? Is that part of that? Or is that a different program? It would be a different program. There are a number of different programs. And what we're working to do, we just started our new fiscal years. We want to get all these different collaborators and partners together and make sure that we streamline these things. So when teachers and students and parents get energy education materials, they're not saying, oh, I already got that or oh, I got something similar to this. We want to make sure that things are new and fresh and helpful for them. Well, every year for the past several years, my kids bring home a document that they're supposed to keep track of what we're doing this week to reduce our energy usage. Right, like an ongoing audit. Yes. So they come and say, OK, did we turn the lights off? Is the refrigerator plugged in? Yeah, it is still plugged in. Did we turn the TVs off all the way? Are the computers turned off? So we go through the checklist of all of these things to make sure that we have reduced our, certainly, our overnight load. Great. So I know that that comes home every year. OK, we have a program very similar to that. It might just be that program. It might. I think it's related because I think your logo is on it. So I think you're connected to that. So that's one of the ways that you reach and teach the kids. So we're going to take a quick break and then we're going to come back. We're going to talk more about each of these programs, OK? Great. Thank you so much for joining us again. This is Think Tech Hawaii's Education Movers, Shakers and Reformers. I'm your host, Carl Campanam, and today we have with us Miss Chelsea Harder from Hawaii Energy. See you in a minute. Hi, I'm Ray Starling, and I am co-host for Hawaii's Wednesday afternoon State of Clean Energy. And with me today is Leslie Cole Brooks, and she's going to tell you what's happening this month with our shows. Hi, everybody. I'm Leslie Cole Brooks, the executive director of the Distributed Energy Resources Council. And this month is the focus is on distributed energy resources. We just had a great show on smart grid technologies, and the rest of the month we're going to discuss storage, different strategies, microgrids, and then we're going to have live man and woman on the street from Verge. So it's really exciting, very informative, lively, and just worth doing. So, see you next Wednesday. Thank you. Welcome back to Think Tech Hawaii's Education Movers, Shakers and Reformers. I'm your host, Carl Campanam. Once again, we have Miss Chelsea Harder from Hawaii Energy here with us today, talking about how we are educating our children and our teachers and our community on energy education. So, again, thank you for joining us. I appreciate it. So let's learn, tell us about the fellowship program. So, through Kupu Rise, you're bringing in students and your, how does the program work? How long of a program is it? What is required for these students to participate? Tell us about that if you would. Sure, sure. So, first of all, we collaborate with Kupu Rise because they're a very robust internship program. They offer different, they focus on different areas, sectors of students. So, high school students, college students, high risk low income students, and we work with the Rise program which works with very high performing college students and recent graduates. So, what is required is they go through an interview process and we want to know their passion for energy. So, what we, and then- So, high performing is what I heard. So, we're not talking about C students here. Right, right. We're not talking about people who are just, they have to be students who are either graduate level or bachelor level. Is there a difference? Both will suffice. Yes, and they can be recent graduates as well. So, graduating from college or from graduate programs. Is it directly out of UH or the UH program? Any school. So, we have some students from HPU, from UH, it doesn't matter. That's excellent. You want to make sure that you're including as many. How many of these interns do you have in any given time? About eight. So, we roll on a yearly cycle. So, we just started our fiscal year this year. Last year we had eight fantastic fellows. And the year before we had fantastic fellows as well. And it's a year long program? It is. And how much time are they expected to put in? They put in about part time. So, up to 19 hours per week. And they usually, yeah. In addition to classwork and everything. Yeah, they're pretty amazing. So, that's again, high performing. You have to know how to manage your time. Which is one of the actually most important skills of your bachelor's degree. Right, right. In addition to having energy industry experience, they also get those mentorship and real life work experience. Which is huge, huge. So, okay, now what can you tell me the statistics as far as the fellows who have come through the program and then have gone on to an energy related job? I don't know if you have those statistics. I know that KUPU Rise as a whole, over 50% have gone into energy fields directly. So, I would love to get stats from them. Well, I'm going to have them here in a couple of weeks actually. Wonderful. I'm going to have one of them here specifically. And they'll tell us more of those details. I'm hoping Hayden I think is coming in. So, we're hoping to learn a lot more from Hayden. So, okay. It's about a year long program at about 19 hours a week. Wow, okay. I'm just trying to envision that when I was in college and I was taking four or five classes at a time and what it took to do all of the work necessary and then still have a friend or two. Right. I think sleep might go out the window. We're working on four hours of sleep and we're good. Training yourself early. All right. So, it's a successful program. And how long has it been in collaboration I should say with Hawaii Energy? Sure, sure. So, I started at Hawaii Energy a little over three years ago. So, it's been going strong for three years. Oh, wow. So, is it your program? It is. Excellent. See now, that's why she's here today because we wanted to learn about this. So, this is spectacular. So, you're taking college students, graduate students and you're integrating them into the job market. Absolutely. So, we're trying to understand where they're passion lies within the energy industry. So, I really want to focus on behavior change or outreach or the technical inspection side. So, we listen to that and we want to encourage their participation in those things that we do. We have some that are, and we give everybody a couple of tasks so they can shift the way they want to as they get the experience. So, we have some that are working on a community-based marketing campaign. So, a lot of behavior change that they're focusing on, understanding the psychology behind like, why aren't you changing out your shower head? And we're working with hard-to-reach sectors. So, those sectors that we, it's hard to penetrate and understand their behaviors. We also do work with our small business direct install program for small businesses and restaurants. So, I think aside from teachers, there's some of the busiest people I've ever met and politicians I'm sure to. But... Some of them are busier than other. But they don't have time to fill out a rebate and even to get money back. They're saying, I don't have any time. So, what we do is we work with a contractor and then we'll pay it completely and they'll get new lighting that will reduce their energy bill. Another amazing benefit that we all pay for already. Right. So, take advantage of it is the recommendation. So, okay, great, great program. That's exciting to know that there are opportunities for students to be engaged in this. Yes, high-performing students, but it's still, it's an incentive to be a high-performing student to know that you're going to get this kind of experience, which is important when it comes to what your next job is going to be. After you've completed your degree, what job can you get and you can point at this experience. Right. And there are a lot of mentorship and networking components as well. There are a lot of different rise cohorts around the islands and they get to speak to professionals that will come in and give talks. That's excellent, that's excellent. Okay, now let's jump in. We have about five minutes or so we have left. Okay. Let's jump into the next piece of this, which is the teacher and outreach and other student educational facets. So, tell us more about that program, what it is, how it works. Sure. We started as a teacher training, just workshops. It's a full day, teachers would come in, get substitute reimbursement, we feed them and we give them training and materials to bring into their classroom. So, a lot of teachers are saying, energy is such a big deal but we don't know how to teach it so we fast-track them and say, we're going to make it easy for you, integrate this into your classroom. Is there a subject matter that relates to more? How does that work out? A lot of teachers that are interested are in the STEM fields, a lot of science teachers but it is for all subjects, you can integrate that into language arts and to music even. So, it's for K through 12 teachers. Definitely a STEM thing, so it's K through 12 specifically. So, this is a program, so you're teaching the teachers how to teach about energy. Which, as we have talked on the show before, we expect a lot of teachers, we expect them to know so much, as I've mentioned before, how to recognize an epileptic seizure, how to recognize that there's a vision challenge, how to recognize concerns, whether they be drug-related concerns or other behavior concerns. We expect this out of our teachers and, oh, by the way, they're also supposed to be teaching a class. So, that's one of the things that I think is wonderful in the heart when they teach, as you mentioned, it's in your family, it's in your blood. It's one of the things we need to recognize our teachers for and that's why I'm one of the people who believes they need much more respect. Alrighty, so, a couple of minutes left, one thing I see a little note on there, I want you to make a mention of your megawatt moment, please. Sure, sure. So, every Wednesday, we will have Hawaii Energy, a program within Hawaii Energy. So, tune in to J-Fidel's show, Think Tech Hawaii. All right, all right. Excellent, good to get a good plug in there, especially for Think Tech. Okay, now let's go back a little bit to how this, so you're teaching the teachers and they're bringing it to the end of the, what teachers, it's really just whatever teachers are interested. Whatever teachers are interested, we want to stoke that fire and then encourage their passion moving forward. One or five or... Okay, could there be... Should there be? I want to open up to all teachers and then something we want to do is connect more directly to homes as well. So, teachers, we make it easy for them to integrate it into their classroom. The kids are, by the way, extremely excited. They'll go home instead of saying, what did you do at school today? Nothing. I have a checklist. I want to see how you're doing. Right, right. In addition to their curriculum. So, not only the teacher gets a kid, but all the kids get to bring a kid home and install things with their parents, like faucet aerators and light bulbs. This is how we change the future. Right. This is how we advise the future. And the kids are our future. We inform them early, get them involved, get them engaged, give them some sort of a practical application for what some of this is, so that as they grow, as they really get there, they have paths for a career and paths for choices to make, whether it's going towards renewable energy jobs and opportunities or biofuels or your job, working with the state or working with Hawaii Energy or working with other organizations that are really directed towards technologies and innovation, but giving the kids an understanding that, look, there's a path here. There's a career path here, as well as a choice, a lifestyle path to a certain extent with that as well. Yeah. That's what you're there for. Right, it's the guts of it. It's the meat of it. One thing we do is we really encourage leadership in the students. We have these community events where students will actually lead an energy carnival, have different booths set around the school and have parents and community members come in and the kids will teach them what they're learning. Right, and they're a lot more compelling to listen to than adults. Because they're more cute. Well, excellent. Alrighty, so last thoughts. What do you want to make sure we leave this interview knowing? Is there anything that we haven't hit that you want to make sure that we are aware of? I really wanted to hit the component about the teachers and to go to community events that students are hosting in schools to learn about how to save energy. You can always visit hoeyenergy.com to learn more. Excellent, excellent. Thank you very much for that. I would love to have you come back another time we can dig deeper into some of these ideas. What I would like to dig deeper into, perhaps on a different show, is the policy drivers that are behind some of this and what can be done. As I mentioned, there's a big coordinator at each school that's involved with teaching as well as making sure that the school is more sustainable. I know that the University of Hawaii has a sustainable coordinator, Matt Lynch, who's going to be on the show in a few weeks, and he'll tell us about what he's doing at UH, and it's wonderful. So at some point, I'd love to have you come back. We could talk more about a lot of these different areas. So I will not be here next week, but I'm sure that we're going to have an amazing program here, probably J. Fidel or someone else, but I apologize that I'll be gone for one week, but I will return the week after. Have a great couple of weeks and I'll see you soon.