Energy Challenge Advice?
My Ag advisor and I have started an energy challenge between schools in my county, kind of a see who can save the most and they get some money back competition. It is officially starting on April 1st and I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas of how I can get people into it or possibly make it better.
There are 3 levels; elementary, middle, and high schools. I know we have some teachers out there that will have some ideas. Hopefully. Anything helps!! I really want this to be as successful as possible.
(theres an article about it here: http://www.bradenton.com/news/local/lakewood_ranch_herald/story/1287964.html if you want to know a little more about it, i just dont want to have to bore everyone with details. And, I'm not a fan of this article, they made it seem like i did everything myself, which is untrue and I dont want to take all the credit!)
Thankss!
I don't have any ideas for you, but I'd like to point out the fact that the article rotates two images: you, and a pile of chicken. Ugh. I know which on I like more...
I noticed that, bleh.
Is it like a contest? We have that going on (or had..I'm not sure..I don't really lurk around the dorms too much) with all the residence halls, like a contest thing to see which hall could use the least energy or something. Recently they taped little lists of "5 things you can do to reduce energy" to our doors. Maybe you could do a list of things the schools could do and tape them up on bathroom doors or something.
Ah. I just read the article. It's pretty much what my school is doing. That is a really good idea to do it in other schools too!! On the list they gave us, they said to set laptops to go to sleep after 15 minutes (maybe set computers in the library to do that?), to turn off lights in the bathroom if there's no one in there (I could be making this up, but I think I've seen motion activated lights in public restrooms, which might be better than letting middle schoolers control bathroom light switches haha), unplug chargers when not in use, and then stuff about laundry that doesn't apply to not college.
You should do a quick google for "Energy Saving Tips" or something.
For getting people into it, really REALLY heavily publicize the kick-off day. Maybe have it be like a spirit day where everyone wears green. I don't know how your cafeteria is (my hs had skylight-ish things so that if it was sunny out, we didn't really need the lights that much), but maybe have a day where you eat with the lights off. Hm..have a table with info set up outside the caf?
Here's some links that might have info
http://www.energyhog.org/childrens.htm
Probably more helpful:
http://energyhog.org/adult/educators.htm
Good luck!!
Ohmygoshhhhhh Cakes thank youuuuu :)>>>
Kick ass ideas ;)b
The only downside to lights, is our school has these weird keys to turn off hallway/bathroom lights, which i guess is good for kids not to mess with them, but a hassle to get them to turn them off or something just during certain times.
i think who you really need to get to is the office staff.. cus when i think about it during a regular school day do the kids use that much electricity? i mean the rooms have lights and computers but it's not like they're watching tv, using microwaves, and doing other things that are easily cut out from a day. the office staff on the other hand is using copiers, fax machines, clock radios, etc.
maybe you could unplug vending machines during off-peak hours, it would help cut back on the junk food consumption too!