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A map of agrivoltaics research garden sites in the Sonoran Desert contributing to participatory science research. View our Welcome video on YouTube: Agricoltaics Citizen Science - SPV Lab | Growing Green, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7eGqDcLY4s
Mission and Vision of SPV Lab
Mission and Vision of SPV Lab
Advance regional knowledge
Advance regional knowledge
Inspire the next generation
Inspire the next generation
Create value for communities
Create value for communities
Mission and Vision of SPV Lab read more
Mission and Vision of SPV Lab read more
A Regional Approach
A Regional Approach
SPV Lab advanced a regional approach to engineering research for teachers and its applications to classroom teaching and learning. Our approach emphasizes the interconnectedness of food and energy by extending photovoltaic (PV) and agricultural engineering research with K-12th grade STEM teachers and their students. PV Lab organize photovoltaic research, curriculum development, and classroom outreach for K-12 teachers, who in turn engage students in investigating how to grow plants and vegetables more effectively in arid desert climates while simultaneously creating power for people.
Photovoltaics, or solar panels, are devices that directly convert sunlight into electricity. Agrivoltaics is a socio-technical innovation that combines solar energy production with agriculture. By planting crops that do not need direct sunlight beneath solar panels, the plants are protected from the brightest rays from the sun and the shading provided can help to reduce water evaporation in the soil which reduces the watering demands of the plants. In turn, the plants have a cooling effect on the solar panels, which allows the panels to operate more efficiently. These technologies have important potential in Arizona, where sunshine is an abundant resource and water is limited.
Teacher participants in SPV Lab learn about crop growth and food production in the arid regions of the desert southwest and generated excitement among students in their classrooms, inspiring the next generation of STEM researchers. SPV Lab educational opportunities focus on classroom and after-school programming that inspires and enables youth to investigate symbiotic relationships among plants, panels, and people in partnership with organizations and citizens in their local communities. To strengthen and sustain this work, participating teachers, students, and community partners co-comprise the SPV Lab network, a growing collaborative of school-based participatory scientists exploring the benefits of growing edible gardens under photovoltaic panels, producing food and power for people.
Our Distributed Lab
Our Distributed Lab
Our Distributed Lab
Our Distributed Lab
Sonoran Photovoltaics Laboratory (SPV Lab) is a growing participatory science project for organizing authentic science with a regional network of K-12 schools, research institutions, and community organizations across the Sonoran Desert region of Arizona, U.S. This network explores how coupling solar energy production with agriculture could address issues such as inequitable access to healthy foods and clean renewable energy in our local neighborhoods. K-12 students and teachers explore symbiosis between plants and solar panels.
Our Distributed lab read more
Our Distributed lab read more
SPV Lab Youth Researchers
SPV Lab Youth Researchers
Students maintain twin garden beds on their school campuses, one shaded by solar panels and the other fully exposed. Working in collaboration with scientists and engineers, they monitor garden features like soil moisture, air temperature, and plant leaf size as well as the efficiency and power of solar panels in order to test an innovative approach to growing plants and generating power. Join us to hear about this program from local youth scholars engaged in this citizen science project.
Why AgriPV Citizen Science
Why AgriPV Citizen Science
What is Citizen Science?
What is Citizen Science?
Citizen Science refers to the involvement of non-professional scientists in scientific research and projects. This approach leverages the collective efforts of volunteers and enthusiasts to gather data, conduct experiments, and contribute to scientific knowledge. Citizen science projects are often collaborative, inclusive, and open to individuals from diverse backgrounds, enabling widespread participation in the scientific process and fostering a greater public understanding of science.
Some projects have local significance, others connect participants to people around the world and phenomena across the galaxy from the comfort of their homes.
SPV Lab University Researchers' Perspectives
SPV Lab University Researchers' Perspectives
What citizen science looks like in our work with school-based agrivoltaics is a question we are answering together. Here is what the SPV Lab university researchers say about their experiences with citizen science.
Team Members and Partners
Team Members and Partners
Michelle Jordan
is a learning scientist interested in how learners navigate uncertainty and how intergenerational collaboration can foster youth agency, productive uncertainty, and ingenuity in action-oriented learning contexts.
is a learning scientist interested in how learners navigate uncertainty and how intergenerational collaboration can foster youth agency, productive uncertainty, and ingenuity in action-oriented learning contexts.
Steve Zuiker
is a learning scientist whose research is broadly based on the notion that ideas are only as important as what we can do with them, and how imagination helps put ideas to work.
is a learning scientist whose research is broadly based on the notion that ideas are only as important as what we can do with them, and how imagination helps put ideas to work.
Christiana Honsberg
Christiana Honsberg
is a professor at ASU's School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering and the School for the Future of Innovation in Society. She studies how to maximize the efficiency of solar panels through the use of experimental silicon solar cells.
Kelly Simmons-Potter
Kelly Simmons-Potter
is the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, College of Engineering at the University of Arizona. She is a University Distinguished Outreach Professor, the
Director AzRISE (the Arizona Research Initiative for Solar Energy), and a
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Rebekah Jongewaard
Rebekah Jongewaard
Rebekah Jongewaard is a doctoral candidate in the Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation at Arizona State University. Her research in STEM education focuses on supporting learning communities in expansively redefining the roles young people can take in acting toward a more just and sustainable world.
Carlos Meza-Torres
Carlos Meza-Torres
Carlos Meza-Torres is a graduate researcher from Arizona State University whose research interests are in school-based K-12 citizen science and using student scientific uncertainty as a pedagogical resource.
History of SPV Lab
History of SPV Lab
SPV Lab acknowledges the Indigenous peoples who have historically lived and continue to live within the Sonoran Desert region, including the O'odham (Akimel and Tohono), Yaqui (Yoeme), the Pee Posh (Maricopa), Apache (including the San Carlos and Tonto tribes), Mojave, and Hopi, among many others. Their care and keeping of these lands allows us to be here today. We are grateful for all they are teaching us about food, energy, and water systems in this region.
History of SPV Lab read more
History of SPV Lab read more
Urban Energy Engineering (UEE)
Urban Energy Engineering (UEE)
SPV Lab recognizes and honors the youth scholars, K-12 facilitators, and university mentors from the Urban Energy Engineering (UEE). They were the pioneers who designed the first PV power systems and monitoring devices, built the systems (especially , and co-developed the first model of the complex relational systems that would be needed to install, implement, and sustain each research site in the network.
K-12 Facilitators: Mia DeLaRosa, Milt Johnson, Po-pé Enrique
University Mentors: Stuart Bowden, Alex Killam, Clark Miller, Nafeesa Irshad, Jonathan Bryan, Mansoure Moeini Rizi, Tara Nietzol, Mason Mahaffey, David Quispe
Youth Scholars: Alex, Alejandra, Alondra, Cristian, Jazmine, Maryan, Michael, Myla
REM: Urban Energy Engineering: Research Experiences and Mentorship for High School Scholars Leading Community Solar Energy Innovation. National Science Foundation Center Supplement to the QESST Solar Energy Engineering Research Center supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy (DOE) under NSF CA No. EEC-1041895.
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