ENERGIZED’ STUDENTS CUT ENERGY COSTS

In an innovative educational program, students at schools in Pennsylvania, New York and Washington state are learning ways to conserve energy and are reducing their schools’ energy bills at the same time.

Schools participating in the Alliance to Save Energy’s Green Schools Program cut their annual energy bills by $7,700 on average, lowering their energy costs by up to 10-15 percent, primarily through behavioral changes, according to the group.  The money saved on energy is then given back to the schools for use on educational needs.

“Schools spend more on energy annually than they do on textbooks and computers,” said Alliance to Save Energy President David M. Nemtzow. “As school districts across the country struggle with competing budget needs, Green Schools creates a new way to meet those priorities by capturing energy waste and recycling the savings.”

Green Schools is a K-12 hands-on educational initiative that encourages both behavioral changes and retrofitting schools so that they are more energy-efficient. Working with teachers and facility managers, students learn to see the “big picture” of energy efficiency—not only “what” to do but “why” it matters—by exploring the links between energy use and the environment. Lessons on energy are woven into the traditional math, science and language arts curriculum, as students learn to assess and monitor energy-use behavior, and track and record changes.

At Martin Luther King High School in Philadelphia, Pa., for example, students encouraged proper waste disposal with flyers around the school. They encouraged fellow students to increase school pride by “Keeping King Clean.” The Green Schools team also developed a water curriculum to show how water flows through a system, just like energy does.

This fall, at Martin Luther King School, a team of students were trained as student energy auditors in Savings Through Energy Management, a program of Wilson Educational Services.  The STEM program trains students to be certified energy auditors. The certification involves doing an audit of their own school and completing a report of their findings and energy savings recommendations for the school. The school will use the team’s ideas and expertise to help cut additional energy costs.

“Kids are truly the movers and shakers behind the whole program,” says Rick Monaco, the director of Facilities and Transportation at the Baldwinsville Central School District.  “When the kids are enthusiastic, it integrates the whole community in a way I’ve never seen before.”

The project began as a pilot program in five school districts in Washington (Seattle, Tacoma), New York state (Baldwinsville, Iroquois) and Pennsylvania (Philadelphia). Green Schools now plans to expand to Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Wisconsin.