---

EASTON - Stephen Ceckowski checks the solar voltage and some other particulars that flash in red as he presses the buttons on the converter box for the photovoltaic panels on the new alternative energy center at Southeastern Regional Vocational-Technical High School.

There's even a reading that tells him how much money has been saved through use of the solar conversion devices.

"Forty-seven cents today, but it's still early," Ceckowski says after reading the calculations on a recent morning when the temperature outside hovered in the 30s.

Ceckowski, a Norton resident, is in his senior year at Southeastern Voke and will be a member of the school's first graduating class in environmental engineering.

The program started four years ago and now boasts the new center, which is dedicated to growing a green generation of students to meet the emerging challenges of energy efficiency and conservation. Still a work in progress, the center allows students studying anything from plumbing to carpentry to automobiles to be involved in hands-on technology aimed at reducing their generation's carbon footprint, said Joanna Forget, one of two instructors in the environmental engineering department.

The overall "green initiative" at the school has also included the reconstruction of a greenhouse where, in its first year of operation, students are learning about aquaculture, raising tilapia fish in one of two 500-gallon round tanks.

"We wanted students to see that they could raise more than just fruits and vegetables" locally, said Forget.

The greenhouse was a warm outpost on the chilly, wind-blown day, but the young tilapia, or fingerlings, had been moved to even warmer waters in an indoor tank by students who were excited to fish them out with beakers.

Tilapia are no longer considered exotic, Forget said, noting students were shown menus from Red Lobster as an example of how common they had become. Tilapia can also be found in supermarkets and raised here at home, meaning they don't necessarily have to be imported. That cuts transportation costs and makes them more environmentally friendly.

Plants are grown hydroponically in the greenhouse, with water running in tubes from the fish tank to tables holding basil, tomato and lettuce plants. The plants absorb the fish waste, including ammonia and nitrates, filtering the water before it returns through other tubes to the tanks.

"Aquaculture is a huge, growing industry," said Tabitha Hobbs, the other instructor in the environmental engineering department. "And farm-raised fish is a sustainable way to provide food for the public."

"People are getting back to basics and getting to know where their food comes from," Forget said, noting that students will eventually participate in a fish fry using their homegrown tilapia.

While aquaculture is a key part of the greenhouse program, others components are planned, including an area for growing native plants, Hobbs said.

Carpentry students also had a hand in the project, helping to install the new covering for the greenhouse, she said. The alternative energy center, in a building not far from the greenhouse, acts as a renewable energy classroom, said teacher Ed Perry. Students learn the technology through hands-on experience, helping to install and monitor the devices and equipment, including specially insulated garage doors and windows.

There will soon be a geothermal heat pump installed by students who are learning the heating, ventilation and air conditioning trade. The pump taps into groundwater for heating and cooling the building, said Jim Tassinari, facilities engineer for the school and to whom Forget credits with starting the environmental engineering concept there.

As part of going green, there is also a program where students calculate their own carbon footprint based on the size of their house, how far they travel and what they eat, among other everyday factors.

Students in the automotive center are building a biodiesel bus.

"We're at the point now where we're not initiating, but educating" students on green initiatives, said Stasia Peters, vocational director for the school of arts and technology.

Karen Maguire, a vocational supervisor, said additional grants are now being sought to install more self-sustaining elements within the building and to eventually bring all of the school's programs together in regards to alternative energy and other green initiatives.

Ceckowski, the senior from Norton, said he sees the center's initiatives as a step in the right direction, but added there is a ways to go before much of the "green" technology can reasonably and affordably be installed in homes.

"It will take awhile before the investment pays off," he said.

Ceckowski has been awarded a John and Abigail Adams state scholarship and plans to attend the University of Massachusetts at Lowell to study nuclear engineering.

SUSAN LaHOUD can be reached at 508-236-0398 or at slahoud@thesunchronicle.com.