In the 2015-2016 school year, 5th grade students at St. Dominic Parish School in Northfield focused their learning on helping the environment. Their mission was to find all the electronic devices in their school and identify the biggest ‘energy hogs.’ At the end of the school year, these students presented their findings at an energy fair and created a plan to help improve their school’s energy efficiency!
As of late, St. Dominic Parish School has been leading by example when it comes to environmental stewardship. In the past two years, the parish has installed 678 4-foot LED bulbs and replaced their old steam furnace with a new 95% efficient hot-water boiler. However, they didn’t stop there. During the 2015-2016 school year, the focused shifted to educating their fifth graders on helping the environment through energy-saving changes to their behavior.
For the Energy Hog Scavenger Hunt, the 5th graders were responsible for taking inventory of all the electronic equipment in St. Dominic Parish School, testing how much energy is being used with a kill-a-watt meter, and identifying the most energy-wasting equipment—the energy hogs. With the help of the SE CERT grant and the parish’s Environmental Care Team, these fifth graders learned about the school’s recent deep energy improvements, as well as the energy-saving opportunities through behavior changes, and the value of these changes to reduce their energy use.
According to George Kinney, the project organizer, “Ideas for starving the energy hogs included: turning off the coffee maker, printing only necessary items and back-to-back printing, turning off the SMARTboards when not in use, and getting rid of the mini-fridges. We also made signs for each room to remind everyone to turn off the lights.”
In April 2016, the students reported their findings at the school’s Energy Fair. Families and parishioners learned about the impact of changes already made at the school and ways to save energy they hadn’t thought of before!
Students share their experiences
What did you learn from this experience?
“Definitely how to think about how much energy we use.”
“That even if you think you’re doing good, you can always go the extra mile. I learned this from a guy named Joe Beckman… he asked my class if would you want to be known as the difference maker or the difference faker.”
“I learned what are the best sources and the most efficient sources of energy. I know to shut all the lights off when I leave a room. I didn’t know a lot about global warming and now I know more than most people.” (…HA :)
“That it is super super important to save energy, because our Earth is becoming destroyed because of our choices. Thing like animals are dying and home are becoming wrecked.”
“That everyone can make a change. You don’t have to be big to make a big change in the world. Everyone can make a difference. I hope that I can make a big impact on our planet.”
“That soon the whole earth will be torn apart. In our last climate change shocker, it said, “The next generations will remember us as the people who destroyed Earth, or the people who finally came through and saved it.” Because we had our energy fair, we have a chance of being remembered as the people who saved Earth. That is what I learned from this experience.”
Do you have other ideas for how to educate people and help make a change?
“Maybe getting deeper facts instead of just saying polar bears are dying. Also I would like try to interview more people. Last I would go around town and put posters up.”
What did you like best about this project?
“I liked taking time and effort to share what we learned about the environment and educating our town about the bad things happening to it. I also liked auditing and learning about energy hogs including microwaves, dishwashers, showers, and laundry machines. I am definitely more aware of what is happening to the environment and how I can help stop it.”
On a scale from 1-10, how has this year changed how you think about your energy use?
“A total 10! I think from now on I’m going to be way more conscious about my energy use!”
“I would say ten. I used to never turn off my lights, but now that we’ve done all of this stuff, I always go around the house turning off the lights before we go somewhere. And, if I leave a room and forget to turn off a light, I always turn around and turn the light off.”
At the fair, do you think or know that you taught someone something? What was it?
“Yes, I think I taught people more about The Encyclical and what they can change at home. And what Laudato si means and what it says and some quotes from The Encyclical. And what the effects we have on nature just by using energy.”
What did you like best about this project?
“How it was a learning experience, normally I don’t like things like this, on how we have to research things, but this one stuck out to me because we need to learn how our actions are harming the earth and we need to fix that. But before I didn’t care so much about my energy use. But now when I look back, I see that was horrible for me to do. Now I see how bad that was, but I’m glad we did this because I learned it’s not too late to fix what I did.”
“I loved it when we got to tell people about energy because I want people to save it.”
Project Snapshot:
- Project: Curriculum and educational activities centered on energy efficient building upgrades and energy efficient behavior change opportunities
- Location: Northfield, MN
- Activity: Education, Outreach
- Technology: Behavior Changes
- Benefits: Educate parents, teachers, staff and the wider parish community about energy conservation and reducing one’s carbon footprint, using the parish examples of deep energy improvements alongside behavior changes for conservation.
- Total Project Cost: $241,145
- SE CERT Seed Grant: $4,000
- Annual Energy Savings: 1,784 kWh
- People Involved: 30
- People Reached: 250
CERTs awards seed grants to community groups for energy efficiency and clean energy projects across Minnesota. We’ve awarded over $1 million in Seed Grants since 2006. Click here to see more Seed Grant blog posts or click here to see more past funded projects. |
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