Ridgewood High School teacher lauded by NJ Inventors Hall of Fame
FRIDAY DECEMBER 14, 2012, 3:12 PM
BY LAURA HERZOG
STAFF WRITER
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
A few years ago, using blackberry juice and titanium dioxide, a non-toxic ingredient found in powdered sugar, Ridgewood “High School (RHS) science teacher Lillian Labowsky and her students began making dye-sensitized nanocrystalline solar cells with enough “juice” to power a calculator.
Attending the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame banquet were several RHS students including (front row from left) Elizabeth Kopec, Robin Smith, Bridget McElroy and Anna Teresa O’Keefe, and (back row from left) ‘Gus Kelty, teacher ‘Lillian Labowsky and Graham Jones.
Three years after Labowsky began the project, which was funded through a National Science Foundation (NSF) program that paired graduate students and grade school teachers to promote science education, it is clear Labowsky did not just help her students make power – she also empowered them to invent.
For her involvement in the innovative two-year project, Labowsky has received accolades from both the state and the “district.
The physics and chemistry teacher was recently recognized by the Board of Education (BOE) for the 2012 “Advancement of Invention” Award she received from the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame (NJIHoF) in “October.