Pine Ridge solar classes train Native workers for the job

For the classroom

On the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center teaches people how to do solar work. About 1,100 people have taken the training. About 80 percent of the graduates now work in solar. The center also won a national award called Power for All. The classes are job training, with skills people can use to install solar power. Most graduates are working in that trade. That is not the same as saying every single student was hired. The news is the training, the jobs that followed for most of the class, and the award that recognized the work.

1. What does a person have to learn before they can put solar panels on a roof?
2. Why would a community want its own people trained for that work?
3. What is the difference between starting a class and finishing with a job?

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