Tish Tablan:
From elementary to high school, these students are studying what is the effect that growing food under the shade of solar panels having on the growth of the food. So they’re partnering with the University of Arizona to study this in real time. So they’re doing real science with university professors and doing studies to find out can carrots grow even in a whole different season when they’re not under the blazing Arizona sun all day long?

Alec Patton:
This is High Tech High Unboxed. I’m Alec Patton, and that was the voice of Tish Tablan, Senior Program Director at Generation 180, an organization that’s all about helping people transition to clean energy. This episode comes from the Climify Podcast, which is hosted by Eric Benson and produced by the Climate Designers Network. We’re putting it out through our channel as part of our occasional series on regenerative education because one of Generation 180’s big projects is helping schools go solar. This episode originally came out in September, 2024, but everything in it is still relevant, if anything more relevant now.
Okay, so when I think about the energy getting burned into school, I’m usually thinking about teacher workload, but K-12 schools in America emit 60 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. That means that moving all the schools in America to renewable energy would be the equivalent of shutting down 150 gas fired power plants. So helping schools move to renewable energy is a big deal. It’s also an awesome opportunity for project-based learning and service learning, as you just heard from Tish in that opening clip. I’m so excited for you to hear this episode, so I’m just going to get right into it. Here’s Climify Podcast host, Eric Benson.

Eric Benson:
Today on our program is Tish Tablan from Generation 180. I learned about Tish and Generation 180 from a prior guest on Climify and had her listed as someone I wanted to have on the program for two years now. So in this Back to School series, I felt Tish was the perfect fit. Generally, I am excited about the prospects of solar and all renewable energy sources becoming even bigger in our lives this year and into the next decade and beyond. And there is a great news on that front. I always look to California, California’s the fifth-largest economy in the world, for what they’re doing with renewables. As they are such an important global economy, they can shift the markets. So recently, Stanford Professor Mark Z. Jacobson reported on the first day of September, California had its 105th day of the year that wind, water, and solar supply exceeded 100% of the main grid demand for part of that day.
But even cooler than that, if that’s possible, South Dakota produced the equivalent of 100.6% of its electricity demand from renewables from July 1st, 2023 to June 30th, 2024. So a year. Mark always says, we don’t need miracle technologies to address climate. We just need to deploy, deploy, deploy existing techs as fast as possible. Tish and Generation 180 believes schools for one are a great place to deploy solar for educational and money savings reasons, and I’m 100% on board with that. So please enjoy my conversation with Tish Tablan.
So Tish, welcome to Climify. It’s a pleasure to have you on the program.

Tish Tablan:
Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here and have this conversation, Eric.

Eric Benson:
I am too. And you’ll hear why in I think a couple questions from now because there’s a question I’ve been itching to ask your organization for two years now, so finally get the chance to do it, but…

Tish Tablan:
We’ll let you scratch that two-year itch.

Eric Benson:
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it’s exciting to have you here, but let’s start with you first before we get to your organization, which is Generation 180. Can you tell us more about your interest in the climate movement and sustainability in general?

Tish Tablan:
Absolutely. Well, first I’ll say to you, Eric, happy back to school season.

Eric Benson:
Oh, yes.

Tish Tablan:
And to all of you design educators out there listening, happy back to school. My kids are back to school now, so it’s quiet in the house right now.

Eric Benson:
Yes.

Tish Tablan:
Yeah. So as far as how I became interested in sustainability, I will, right off the bat, just give my shout-out to all educators and especially design educators like you, Eric, because I have dedicated my career to sustainability for over two decades. And I made that decision to go into this career path because of an undergraduate class that I took at the University of Virginia, taught by a fellow sustainability designer and design educator, William McDonough.

Eric Benson:
Oh, wow.

Tish Tablan:
As you know, William McDonough is a renowned green architect and co-author of the book Cradle to Cradle, which is a seminal book in sustainable design thinking. And at the time, William McDonough was the dean of the architecture school at the University of Virginia, and signed up for his class called Environmental Choices. And it just opened my eyes and it just made so much sense to me the ideas and examples that he was sharing. And this is just how the world should be designed and how everything should work in closed-loop systems. And actually, I took his class before the term sustainability was very commonplace, and even before he wrote the book Cradle to Cradle.

Eric Benson:
Oh, wow.

Tish Tablan:
So this was in the previous millennium I took his class.

Eric Benson:
You got him before he took off in fame, yeah.

Tish Tablan:
Yes. And really taking that class just changed the trajectory of my career. After college, I actually became a public school teacher. I taught middle school and high school for six years. And during that time, I was committed to finding ways to integrate sustainability into my geography and physical science lesson plans and just inspiring students how they can live more sustainably.

Eric Benson:
Thank you for your service.

Tish Tablan:
Of course. I mean, it’s such an important job.

Eric Benson:
It is.

Tish Tablan:
So when I moved back to Charlottesville where the University of Virginia is located, I actually was fortunate to be able to work for William McDonough’s sustainability design firm called McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry. And through that work, we supported companies to rethink how their products are designed and how to use cradle to cradle thinking and how to incorporate their products into full life cycle systems that go into technical systems where materials can be recycled or into biological systems where the materials can be composted. So through that work, we actually initiated the Cradle to Cradle product certification. And I saw that you recently had on your show the founder of Wellicious Clothing, which achieved a Cradle to Cradle certification. Yes. So it all ties together, Eric.

Eric Benson:
Yeah, it does. Yeah, Heike. Yeah. Heike Peterson, yeah. It’s hard to do. I mean, the way that she was talking through how she did the certification is hard. And it’s not the fault of McDonough’s organization, it’s the fault the system everywhere else, right?

Tish Tablan:
That’s right. It is a challenging certification, and the system is kind of rigged against you. It’s really hard to design materials to be composted or to be recycled when not every community has composting, not every community has recycling. It’s a challenge. It’s a worthwhile challenge though.

Eric Benson:
Well, William McDonough was my hero in grad school, and so I got to meet him at a dinner. And one thing I fondly remember from it, it was kind of humorous, was I’m not sure the people who brought him in actually read his book because one of the first things that they did was hand him a plastic bottle of water. And he kind of looked at it and then looked around and was like, I’m sure he was thinking, “Did you not read my book?” How is he to work with?

Tish Tablan:
It was such a great experience, and he is definitely an inspiration. So working there is definitely what launched me into my lifelong career in sustainability. So I’m thankful for that experience.

Eric Benson:
So you went from McDonough to Generation 180, or were there any steps in between?

Tish Tablan:
There were a few steps in between, but that was definitely closest to your heart, I think, Eric, in design thinking, and I’ll say that one of the focuses of cradle to cradle thinking includes renewable energy and how we’re powering… what is the source of the energy that’s powering the creation of the products that are certified. So I took that energy part of the Cradle to Cradle certification and kept going down that track. So now at Generation 180, we’re really focused on the energy part of the puzzle.

Eric Benson:
Yeah. Well, let’s talk about Generation 180 because very exciting organization and like I said, I learned about it two years ago actually from a guest on this program who apparently worked with your organization somehow, I can’t recall, but talk more about what the mission is of Generation 180.

Tish Tablan:
Yes. Generation 180 is a national nonprofit organization. Our mission is to inspire and equip people to take action to help solve the climate crisis by integrating clean energy into their homes and communities. And Generation 180’s founder is a clean energy entrepreneur, and he dedicated his career to cleaning up our electric grid, making utility-scale clean energy feasible and economical, and overcoming the barriers put up by the fossil fuel industry. And through that work, what he realized is that everyday people who are consuming this electricity were not making the connection to what their role is, like what is our role as everyday consumers of that electricity? What’s our role in solving this problem?
So at that time, nearly a decade ago, he felt people were largely unaware of what’s fueling the electricity coming into your homes or apathetic that anything can really be done to change it. And so the only news coverage people heard about climate change was gloom and doom. And the average American didn’t feel like their energy choices mattered. So in his work, he was seeing what fast progress clean energy was making, and he identified really a communication and awareness gap that now more than ever Americans should be feeling a power that they can make their own energy choices and that these changes are making a difference. And that’s what inspired the founding of Generation 180. So in the name, it means that we are the generation that will make a 180 degree turn away from fossil fuels.

Eric Benson:
Got it. I didn’t know what the 180 stood for. I could not figure it out, but thank you. So you have some great programs there, like Electrify Your Life, Electrify Your Ride, that’s a good one, and Electrify Our Schools. And since this is our back to school series, I wanted to focus a lot on that area of schools. So can you share more about that Electrify Our Schools program, and why did you focus on schools as an important climate solution?

Tish Tablan:
Well, first of all, being a public school teacher in my past, I brought that experience to this work. And so I helped launch the program in 2017, the vision to focus on schools. And there’s several reasons we decided to make K-12 schools a focus of Generation Generation 180’s work. There are approximately 100,000 public schools in this country, and our schools represent the second-largest sector of public infrastructure after highways.

Eric Benson:
I did not know that.

Tish Tablan:
Yeah. So from a climate perspective, our schools have a large carbon footprint. We estimate that K-12 schools in the US emit 60 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year.

Eric Benson:
60 million.

Tish Tablan:
60 million metric tons.

Eric Benson:
That’s a lot.

Tish Tablan:
What that means is if we powered all of our schools with 100% clean energy, that would be equivalent to shutting down 150 gas-fired power plants.

Eric Benson:
150?

Tish Tablan:
Yes.

Eric Benson:
Oh my gosh. This is a big opportunity as much as it is a prof.

Tish Tablan:
Absolutely. So from a climate perspective, looking at this big source of public infrastructure makes a lot of sense. And from an impact perspective, schools are also an ideal place to model sustainability. It’s estimated that one in six Americans visit a school every day. So by making our schools more sustainable, we’re actually educating multiple generations at once. Both children and adults that visit schools every day. So we can use schools to model a more sustainable way of living.
In addition, there’s a well documented solar contagion effect. So our program is now called Electrify Our Schools, but we started it with Solar for All Schools. So when we started years ago, solar was really the most accessible form of clean energy that we wanted to talk about with schools. And one of the reasons we wanted to do this at schools was because of this well-documented solar contagion effect. Are you familiar with it?

Eric Benson:
I think so but the word contagion kind of throws me off here like I’m going to get sick or something.

Tish Tablan:
We’ll have to find a more positive word to use. But solar contagion means that really when one building or household goes solar, you’ll see that ripple effect out into the community. So the best predictor of a household going solar is if that household has a neighbor who has gone solar.

Eric Benson:
Keeping up with the Joneses, right.

Tish Tablan:
Absolutely. See, it’s a positive example of peer pressure.

Eric Benson:
It is. And it seems to work. It seems to work.

Tish Tablan:
It’s working. Since there’s a school in every community, we felt that focusing on schools is a smart way to normalize the adoption of clean energy across the country.

Eric Benson:
And I can see, I didn’t think about this, but I can see it now in terms of not just kids in the schools are going to be impacted by this, but their teachers too, with that contagion effect, they’ll see solar being put on the schools and wonder, I could do this too. It doesn’t look that hard. And I guess a few people I know have been worried that it would damage their roof, and some of these things could be cleared up, I think, right?

Tish Tablan:
Yes, that is a common concern. But when that, I would say largely, you don’t have to worry about, for the most part, especially at commercial scale solar, you can install solar on a flat roof without penetrating the roof barrier. And then in fact, the solar panels are preserving the life of the roof because they’re protecting the roof membrane from rain, wind, sun.

Eric Benson:
I didn’t think of that.

Tish Tablan:
So it actually prolongs the life of certain rooftops.

Eric Benson:
Well, can you tell me some more examples, that’s a really good one, of sustainable or climate-friendly design that’s being implemented in K-12 schools here in the US?

Tish Tablan:
Sure. Well, through our Electrify Our Schools program, we are really thinking about how to have schools become these centers of sustainability, of resilience of healthy buildings. So we’re looking at, thinking about all of the systems, particularly energy, but we’re looking at transportation systems, energy systems, and there’s so many great examples we can pull from of how schools are doing this well and using that technology on campus to make the building a teacher of students.

Eric Benson:
Oh, I like that.

Tish Tablan:
So one of the examples I love is in Tucson, Arizona and in Tucson Unified School District, they’re doing some really cool things integrating school gardens with solar panels, and I don’t know if you’ve heard of this term called agrivoltaics.

Eric Benson:
I have and I loved it.

Tish Tablan:
Yeah. So combining agriculture and photovoltaics from solar together. And what that looks like in schools across Tucson Unified is they have community gardens or school gardens set up outside, and some of the gardens have solar canopies above them. And what’s so cool is that even from elementary to high school, these students are studying what is the effect that solar panels or growing food under the shade of solar panels having on the growth of the food. So they’re partnering with the University of Arizona to study this in real time. So they’re doing real science with university professors and doing studies to find out can carrots grow even in a whole different season when they’re not under the blazing Arizona sun all day long. And so there’s some really cool examples of having solar technology and other technology is kind of just part of how students are learning.

Eric Benson:
It’s just boggles my mind that people would be against something like that. This should just be, I feel like it’s just a fantastic learning opportunity from multiple different classroom angles.

Tish Tablan:
Absolutely. I think most of the concerns I’ve heard are pretty answerable. I think that’s what’s, to me, fun about this work is it’s just win, win, win. It’s clean energy saving schools money, it’s helping students. You can use that technology into workforce development. So there are several school districts that are using their on-site solar technology to train the next generation of clean energy workers. So in New York City, in Philadelphia, we’re seeing the school districts training high school students to be solar installers, to work in the solar industry. And it’s just part of the curriculum. And we’re even seeing in New York and even in West Virginia, some of these students graduating from this program able to participate in helping install more solar on their own schools. It’s such a great model.

Eric Benson:
It is. And I think about what’s happening in K-12 and the need for more trade programs, and that’s a perfect opportunity for that to happen. So I was also thinking about an article that I remember reading about. I think it was in the South, I think it was in the South, cost savings from solar allowed for teacher raises. That’s a true story. I liked that idea.

Tish Tablan:
That is not a myth. That is true. In fact, we wrote about that case study maybe four years ago now, and what’s unique about it is that this example takes place in a rural town called Batesville, Arkansas.

Eric Benson:
Arkansas, okay.

Tish Tablan:
And Arkansas, you can look on our website, is not ranked highly for the amount of solar installed by schools. So this is such a great example that stands out because the superintendent at that time was visionary in inspiring his staff in saying, if we can use energy efficiency, use energy conservation to be mindful of how we use our energy and then take in solar energy savings, we will use that to raise teacher pay. So he was solving his teacher retention problem by using clean energy. So he had this vision, I will take these savings and put it into teacher pay. And he saw raises in his district go up by up to $15,000 per year in some cases for veteran teachers. And his district went from one of the lowest paying districts in his region to one of the highest paying districts in his region. And that definitely solved the teacher retention issue that he would have.

Eric Benson:
Yeah. Thank you, Sun. Thank you, Sun here for this.

Tish Tablan:
That’s right. And if you think about it, so energy is actually the second highest expense for many school districts.

Eric Benson:
Oh, is it?

Tish Tablan:
So we pay teachers, we pay for staffing and benefits, and the next biggest expense is their utility bills. So we’re paying more to utilities, then if we can take that big amount of money we’re paying to utilities and shift it back into what we really need to fund for student education. So over and over again, we share lots of case studies of school districts that are using their clean energy savings to pay for books, pay for laptops, to just fund general operations that they’re not getting because their budgets are restricted or just recently got slashed. So this idea that, hey, by cutting our electric bill, we can fund teacher pay, we can fund the things that really matter for our students’ education. It’s really powerful.

Eric Benson:
Teachers will no longer have to provide their own pencils for their students. I mean, it’s just disgusting. I mean, that’s just so smart, and I wish I had one of those breaking news sound alerts because you have some breaking news from Generation 180, find one and put it in here. But yesterday, which was we’re recording at the end of August here, and this comes out in September, but August 28th, you had a new study that came out called Brighter Future for 2024. Maybe I forgot some of the subtitles from your study, but it was released for this back to school season, and you’re sharing some really great data on solar adoption in K-12 schools. So I know you’re excited to talk about it because you’ve been working on it for how long? How long have you been nose to your computer working on this?

Tish Tablan:
We started the data collection process in January, so eight months later, we have some great news to share. And so for this back to school season, we found that at least one in nine K-12 students will be returning to a solar-powered school.

Eric Benson:
Oh my God.

Tish Tablan:
One in nine students returning to a K-12 solar-powered school.

Eric Benson:
That’s awesome.

Tish Tablan:
That’s exciting. So that’s over six million students attending a school with some amount of their energy being powered by solar.

Eric Benson:
Okay. So it’s not always 100%, but it’s a percentage.

Tish Tablan:
That’s right. Some percentage. So we have a ways to go to get to… Our organization’s vision, of course, is for all of our schools to be 100% powered by clean energy, and that’s what we work on every day. But this is a good milestone for us to see that it’s becoming more and more common. In fact, we have nearly 9,000 K-12 schools with some amount of solar installed on site, or they’re purchasing some offsite energy. We included things like offsite community solar, but for the most part, these are schools that have installed a solar array on their campus

Eric Benson:
And high schools, I feel are getting bigger and bigger. And I could just imagine then consequently, energy bills are higher and higher. So there’s solar right there. There’s a perfect opportunity. Like you said, win-win-win, let’s get more resources, pay the teachers more, and what else do we need? New football helmets for the football team or something like that. It’s football season too, that’s happening.

Tish Tablan:
That’s right. And there’s so many opportunities to integrate this kind of technology into how the students learn by either saving money, integrating it directly into the classroom. It’s exciting to see that more and more schools are seeing what’s possible and deciding they can take these steps as well. And so what we’re doing as an organization is helping to provide resources to help schools access this. We offer free solar feasibility reports for schools if they’re interested in trying to do this, we can help you figure out how much solar you could use if your roof is viable, how much it might cost, how you might be able to finance it, because we want to see that number keep growing. And it has been growing. So over the past two years alone, 800 more K-12 schools went solar. So that’s enough for at least one school to go solar every day over the last two years. So that’s how quickly it’s grown.

Eric Benson:
That’s a good way to put it in perspective, right? Because you say the number 800, the country’s huge, right? But one a day, one a day,

Tish Tablan:
More than one a day.

Eric Benson:
Do you have a goal of two a day? Because that would be my goal.

Tish Tablan:
I think we’re on a race to get to 100% as quickly as we can, so let’s do as many a day as we can.

Eric Benson:
Well, I mentioned earlier on, I’ve been itching to ask Generation 180 this question for two years now. Okay?

Tish Tablan:
That’s okay.

Eric Benson:
When I learned about the Electrify Our Schools program, I got very excited because there are, guess what, public schools in my town that I would love to see get involved in this, and I think the barrier for me was how do I convince them, right? So my question for you is, and by the way, I now remember who I heard your organization from, and it was Ruth McElroy from Norfolk Solar. She was in our first season and she was the one that really piqued my interest in this. So the question is, I just would love it if you could walk me through how anyone, a parent, a teacher, a concerned public citizen, could help convince one or many of their local public schools to join up in your Electrify Our Schools program and get this solar financed on their schools.

Tish Tablan:
That is such a great question, and I love that. That is the question you’ve been dying to ask me for two years.

Eric Benson:
Two years. Yes.

Tish Tablan:
You shouldn’t have waited so long.

Eric Benson:
I know. I have no excuses. It’s my fault. It’s really.

Tish Tablan:
No, we’re all busy people. And so I think that’s what we are here for, what Generation 180 is doing, is trying to give you what you need, whether you’re a parent, teacher or school administrator to help make this happen. As we said, this really can be a win-win-win for schools. And so I would lead with that, is there is no school out there that couldn’t use more money. So if you present them the idea, start with this idea that, hey, energy is probably one of your largest expenses and by going solar, we can cut those expenses and that is money in your budget you can spend on things that you want to be spending it on. So that’s really a big message. We have so many success stories on our website. So you mentioned Ruth McElroy and Norfolk Solar. So Ruth actually did this before she started Norfolk Solar, she was an engaged mom, and of course she happens to be a really smart mom and a NASA scientist.

Eric Benson:
Yeah, that helps.

Tish Tablan:
So she had some tools in her back pocket, but what she ended up doing was helping her school, her son’s school go solar in a way by looking at the financing. So I think that’s a unique example, and we can circle back to that, but just knowing that there are examples out there where you as even a parent or community member get involved and solar happens because of what you did. So we do have an organizing toolkit on our website.

Eric Benson:
Oh we do? Good.

Tish Tablan:
And it walks you through what those steps look like. And I would just encourage you to start by reaching out to your school district. The person that could potentially be the most important to talk to is the facilities or operations director.

Eric Benson:
Got it.

Tish Tablan:
Because that’s the person who might say, “Well, what about my roof and how do I finance this?” And so getting that person on board and answering some of those questions is pivotal. And again, we have resources to help you answer some of those questions, or you can send them directly to us. That’s why we have free technical assistance. We also have this network that we call our School Leadership and Clean Energy Network.
And so what we’re doing is taking leaders like facilities managers, like superintendents, school board members, even teachers who have been the champions for clean energy at their school and are willing to help mentor or talk to other schools who want to be where they are and saying, “Here’s how we did it, here’s what was successful.” So you can, Eric, talk to someone in your school district, point them our way. We can connect them with someone in our district. There are plenty of examples in Illinois of other districts they can talk to that can say, “Here’s how we did it. We’re saving money. It’s been really beneficial for these reasons.” Illinois is doing great. They’re in our rankings. I will confirm, I believe Illinois is a top 10 school even, or top 10 state. Yep. 1, 2, 3. Illinois right now ranks 10th in the country.

Eric Benson:
Oh yeah.

Tish Tablan:
66 megawatts of cumulative solar capacity installed on its schools. So plenty of examples for you to find in Illinois, Eric, that can inspire your school district.

Eric Benson:
Years and years ago, I moved to Illinois and one of the things I didn’t think I would ever say is I am proud to live in Illinois. It has surprised me, the people here, and they have, like that number, we’re 10 in schools with solar. That’s amazing.

Tish Tablan:
Sixth. You are Illinois is six in the country.

Eric Benson:
Oh, we’re sixth. Oh, we’re top 10, but we’re number six. Okay, got it. That’s even better.

Tish Tablan:
That’s even better. And one thing that is helpful in Illinois and in 30 other states is that schools can go solar with no upfront cost. If you look at our report-

Eric Benson:
That’s a big deal. That’s a big deal.

Tish Tablan:
That is what really drives this is because we were just talking about how schools need more money, they’re cash-strapped sometimes, so the second key message is… Well, first key message is you can save money, and the second one is, and in your state in Illinois and in up to 30 others, you can do this with no upfront cost. If we look at our data that we put in our report, we studied where solar adoption happens, what are the policies that are making it happen? So we do write about this that there is a policy called or that enables third-party ownership of solar or power purchase agreements. So if your state has this or enables this, that means that your school district would partner with a solar developer like Norfolk Solar, and that developer will pay for the upfront costs, they own the panels, they will install it, they will even maintain it for you for the term of your agreement, which could be 7 to 25 years.
And then you pay that developer for the solar electricity that’s being produced. But what happens is that you’re typically paying a lower rate than what you would pay at your utility. So what we would want to see in these kind of arrangements is no upfront capital cost from the school and immediate energy savings. So if right now in my home state of Virginia, if our schools are paying 9 cents per kilowatt-hour to the utility through a power purchase agreement, maybe they’ll pay 6 to 7 cents per kilowatt-hour for that solar electricity produced. So we’re seeing schools saving hundreds of thousands of dollars over the long term on their electric bill through arrangements like this, and it really helps schools get around one of the most common barriers, which is that big upfront cost.

Eric Benson:
The first step is on your site you have this organizational toolkit and that can help you reach out to the right people in your area, and if you get confused, send them to you. Not you necessarily.

Tish Tablan:
It can be me. Absolutely

Eric Benson:
Send them to Tish.

Tish Tablan:
Yup.

Eric Benson:
Okay. And I was wondering, because I know, and I don’t know if this is something that’s very common, that a lot of times you have to go to the school board, you have to get some sort of other big approval. And I’m curious, is that something that as someone in the community, I have to worry about giving a big presentation or something?

Tish Tablan:
That is a good question. One thing I will say is that, yes, usually the school board approves a big capital project like this. Definitely as a community member, anyone can go and speak at a school board meeting, there’s usually a public comment period. And like I said, you can get some talking points from our website or from our materials. What I would encourage you is that you don’t have to be an expert on this to speak up about it. What’s most important is that you just bring your voice and your reasons for why this is important, and you don’t have to solve all the problems of how you get there, but just bringing your voice to the table and coming to those meetings is important.
And I’ve personally done this myself for my own school district. I have kids in the public schools, and in my own community, I gathered a group of parents and community members to speak up at our school board meeting and say, “We want more clean energy in our schools.” And my son at the time was in first grade, and he even spoke at the meeting, of course, in a first grade appropriate way. He had a few sentences that he prepared, and it was really adorable. The ending punchline was something like, “And I want clean energy at my school because I don’t want to have to move to Mars.”

Eric Benson:
Yes. I like that. Cuteness factor there, I think. And I’m assuming it worked. Did it work?

Tish Tablan:
Yes, well, we passed the resolution and our district is continuing to work on adding more clean energy. We have a brand new building underway, and that middle school is slated to get a big solar array on it once it’s-

Eric Benson:
Oh, wow. That’s great. Is there like a, I know we’re all about instant gratification nowadays, and if it’s successful, how long is the usual timeline from downloading your toolkit to getting the solar arrays on your middle school?

Tish Tablan:
It does take a bit of a patience and persistence. It could take up to two years. It could be faster. It really depends on… It’s case by case. It depends on what you’re trying to do and how fast we can get it done. There’s quite a few factors, but definitely you want to have some persistence and patience. But I’d want to encourage all the students and young people listening that I see examples of this all across the country and one of the most effective ways I’ve seen to move this forward is by getting students involved.

Eric Benson:
I would say so.

Tish Tablan:
Having students coming to the school board meeting, writing their superintendent, talking to school board members, they are there to serve students. That is their job. So if they have students speaking up that this is important to them, that they’re concerned about climate change, that they want to see their school modeling these things, they will listen. And you definitely have their ear in a way that… more than you might expect. So I encourage any young people to don’t be afraid to do this yourself and speak up.

Eric Benson:
So if I would’ve asked you two years ago, we could have had solar this fall on the high school two blocks for me, so.

Tish Tablan:
That’s right. It’s not too late. We’ll talk more after this conversation.

Eric Benson:
Yes. Yeah, yeah. Well, I’m a designer, so as I was going through your site, and I was thinking about this over the years about doing a presentation or just talking to someone at the school, I was curious about, and I haven’t downloaded your toolkit, so I was thinking about slide decks. I was thinking, is that something that has worked well or do you provide that?

Tish Tablan:
We can help you create some resources. That is a good request. I think we could come up with a template slide deck for people and put it in Google Slides or something like that.

Eric Benson:
Yeah, you got to ask the designers. We have great ideas.

Tish Tablan:
Amazing. Well, I love that, I’m adding it to the list.

Eric Benson:
Thank you.

Tish Tablan:
But like I said, what I would encourage any listener is that, again, you don’t have to be the expert. Speak with authenticity of why this matters to you, why you care about it, and why you want to see it happen. And that’s the most important part. So we can bring in others who have that expertise and can talk numbers and talk why you shouldn’t worry about your roof or whatever the questions are. But you definitely don’t have to be the expert to bring it up. So I don’t want that to be a barrier.

Eric Benson:
Yeah. I think one of the things that I’ve found effective over the years, and then you’re doing it at Generation 180, is talking about the other green. There’s the green and the environment. And a lot of times that just doesn’t resonate with some people for whatever reason, we are nature, so it should resonate. But talking about money, and a lot of times that’s like the grease that greases the cogs of the machine to get in there. And I see that in some of your strategies, and I think it’s smart.

Tish Tablan:
Yeah, absolutely. Every school could use more money to serve more students and serve them and provide more services. So that’s a language that every school will understand no matter what. And I think that that’s one of the benefits that we lead with, of course. And there are many districts, and especially with student-led campaigns, most frequently I see students being concerned specifically about climate change. And if that’s your reason, if that’s what’s driving you, then that’s what I encourage you to talk about and bring up to the school board. So it’s important for however, whatever matters to you or why this resonates with you, you can speak that.

Eric Benson:
One of the students that I had a number of years ago, she was very passionate about climate and specifically about clean energy. And she wanted the university where she was at to… Well, at the University of Illinois, and she really wanted them to have more solar panels. And she was coming up with these ideas and I want to run one by you.

Tish Tablan:
Okay.

Eric Benson:
And that was, she knows that a lot of the alumni, a lot of the people in the community love college football. And so she was positioning the argument around solar on the football stadium or around the football stadium. And I’m wondering if that’s something you’ve heard of or do you think that could be an interesting strategy to get solar involved in more of student life?

Tish Tablan:
I love that question because we actually do use some of those types of communication strategies at Generation 180. So we mentioned at the beginning of the conversation that we have an Electrify Your Ride program, and we also have a focus on communications, messaging, design. You’ll be happy to hear, Eric, we have two graphic designers on our small nonprofit staff.

Eric Benson:
Wonderful.

Tish Tablan:
Because telling the story and doing it in a way that engages people is really important because as we’ve seen and as I’ve been working on climate, trying to fight the climate crisis for decades now, facts don’t always persuade people. In fact, we’re living in this age where people aren’t sure what the facts are anymore. So-

Eric Benson:
Sadly.

Tish Tablan:
… being able to engage people with, we create beautiful content for social media, we create engaging content through storytelling with the press. And one of the things we’ve been doing is using influencers. So that is actually a strategy we have used in our Electrify Your Ride campaign. Even here in my community in Virginia, we’ve partnered with sports announcers and our well-loved basketball head coach at the University of Virginia was in one of our videos. So we created a video to educate people about electric vehicles and why they should drive electric. And so we definitely leaned into local influencers in our community to get people to buy in. So I mean, this is a very old marketing strategy that you get famous people to market your products. So using it to fight climate change is a smart strategy. We’re definitely using that however we can.

Eric Benson:
Yeah, I mean, I’m thinking now college sports, they have the NIL or name and likeness deals for their athletes, student athletes, and I could see them joining forces with organizations to help fight climate and support the effort.

Tish Tablan:
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s something that we’ve been doing is really trying to meet people where they are and make climate change something we can talk about amongst friends or when you’re out at a tailgate or whatever you’re watching on social media, that it needs to be part of this everyday conversation that we’re having. And we need to normalize clean energy and normalize climate solutions. So I love those kinds of strategies. If you think that’s effective where you live, you put it on the football stadium, engage local celebrities towards your cause. So I think we need to see climate solutions everywhere for people to see it in their own life.

Eric Benson:
Yeah, I agree. And so what’s next for you? What’s next for you and Generation 180?

Tish Tablan:
That’s a great question. I think we will be doing some more of these fun strategies you just brought up, Eric. And we had talked about our climate comedy work, and so that’s another way we’re engaging people is through comedy. And if you look at behavioral science, we know that comedy can help break down barriers. It helps lowers people’s guard. It actually makes them more open to thinking about new ideas. So it’s just a fun way that we’ve been using comedians to talk about climate change. So through their own channels on social media or even on stage for comedians that do stand up. So we have comedians that we train, we educate them about climate change, about climate solutions, and then they figure out how to authentically work those topics into their content that they create already. So it’s kind of empowering them to make this a topic that they talk about.

Eric Benson:
Yeah, that’s really interesting. I’m curious about how someone can be more involved with your organization if they’re an influencer out there listening, how could they reach out to you if they want to help?

Tish Tablan:
Great question. If you’re interested, please just explore our website. At generation180.org, we are thinking of creative ways to get people more involved in adopting clean energy and fighting the climate crisis. So whether it’s in your home, in your school, online, we have a lot of different ways you can get engaged.

Eric Benson:
We’re headed to my final question here, and it’s my favorite. It’s my favorite one, although the one I was waiting two years for probably in this scenario is my favorite question, but it’s an important one, and I love to hear what folks outside of design sometimes think about it. And if you were asked to teach a class to design students, what would you have them do?

Tish Tablan:
Love that question, and I’ll circle back to some of the examples we talked about at the beginning, but I think the vision that I would ask students to create is how can we use a school campus to model and teach about sustainability? So I would love to see more schools and school campuses designed so that they are closed systems, so that they’re producing the energy on site that they’re consuming, they’re capturing water on site and treating water on site, they’re growing their own food and composting it on site. So we can think about how do we do this at a school? And the extra element that schools bring in is then you have students that can both create them and that you’re also teaching about them. So think about how can the school campus be the teacher?

Eric Benson:
I like that. Yeah. I would think William McDonough would like that too, right? The building being the teacher as well.

Tish Tablan:
That’s right.

Eric Benson:
Well, thank you, Tish. It’s been a wonderful conversation. And before we go, can you once again tell us where we can find you and Generation 180 online and its social media?

Tish Tablan:
Absolutely. The website’s very easy. It’s generation180.org, and really, you can start there and find our social media links. Contact us through the websites. We’d love to hear from you.

Eric Benson:
Well, thank you so much, Tish. It’s been a wonderful conversation.

Tish Tablan:
Thank you so much, Eric.

Eric Benson:
Thanks for listening, and we want to hear from you. What did you take away from this discussion? We also want to know how you are changing the system. Email us at climifypodcast@gmail.com or connect with us on Instagram @climifypodcast. We would love to read your inspirational stories on the show in upcoming episodes.
This program is produced by Cam Berkins, with writing and research by Abigail Zhuk, Jacqui Himmel, and Bhavna Bhavanishankar, designed by Adam Dziaba, sound engineering and editing by me, Eric Benson. A special thanks to Marc O’Brien at the Climate Designers and Tink Media for their sage advice to make this season even better than the last. You can find design prompts and more information on all our guests this season at climatedesigners.org/edu/climify, and on Instagram and LinkedIn, @climifypodcast.

Alec Patton:
High Tech High Unboxed is hosted by me, Alec Patton. If you want to check out more from Climify, we’ve got a link to their show in our show notes. Also, as Eric just mentioned, because Climify is made by the Climate Designers Network, they include resources for incorporating their episodes into design classes. So of course, we got links to those resources too. We also have links to the other episodes in our regenerative education series. Thanks for listening.