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GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Teacher Kent Main and the students in his gifted and talented class at Fruita 8-9 School didn't realize anyone was watching when they set out to save energy and reduce utility bills at their school.
The school was new in 2006 when Main challenged his students to look at the $15,000 per month utility bills and question why a new building was using so much energy.
“We looked at what we could do in this building through conservation to cut that down,” Main said.
Student-led conservation measures implemented over the past four years have saved the school thousands of dollars in utility bills, and have helped earn the school an Energy Star rating it didn't have when newly built.
Main and his students were surprised to learn their school had been nominated for the 2011 Sustainability Champion Award, a statewide recognition of groups who contribute significantly to the environment, economy and society.
At the 2011 Sustainable Opportunities Summit last month in Denver, Main learned that Fruita 8-9 had won the award, beating 40 other groups from across the state who were also nominated for the category of medium-sized organizations. Those groups of individuals come from within industry, educational institutions, business, nonprofits and local, state, and federal government.
The other two finalists were the City of Golden recycling program, and the Metropolitan District of Highlands Ranch water reclamation program.
The Sustainability award is sponsored by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and its partners — the Colorado Environmental Partnership, Connected Organizations for a Responsible Economy and ColoradoBiz Magazine.
“For (Fruita 8-9) to be named the state's sustainability champion of organizations with 50-500 employees is just extraordinary,” said David Miller, chair of Alpine Bank's Green Team, who along with colleague Kelli McLean, nominated the Fruita 8-9 School. “They beat out businesses, government — people on the Front Range where the heavy hitters are.”
“They're the little engine that could.”
A $36,000 SAVINGS
Thanks to a number of conservation measures initiated by the gifted and talented students, Fruita 8-9 School has cut its energy use by a third — which translates into an annual $36,000 savings in utility costs.
Main's first group of students started with recycling paper in 2006-07, after they noticed many classrooms were “swimming in paper.”
Other teachers and students currently manage the recycling, which now includes plastics, while Main's students have turned their attention to other sustainability projects.
The students invited the school district's energy manager Eric Anderson to Fruita 8-9 to discuss additional ways to save energy. Anderson registered the class in his Energy Star auditing software and showed them how to track monthly billings.
The eighth-graders began “hounding” teachers to turn off the lights and computer monitors when they left their classrooms. They also convinced building administrators to turn off parking lot lights when no one was using it. Lights were timed to go off after the custodians left for the night, and during the weekends when no one was there.
Those three changes immediately reduced utility bills by $1,000 per month, Main said.
In June, district-wide recycling was implemented.
The Fruita students led the way for that program, Anderson said.
STUDENT ENERGY BLOG
Main's students started blogging about energy in 2007-08.
Afterburnenergy.blogspot.com is the first student-run blog in School District 51. Each student researches and writes a weekly blog on a topical energy subject.
Students have written 150 blogs since January 2011 — and approximately 1,000 blogs over a four-year period. Those blogs have received 6,680 visits from 116 countries.
“Every bit of that started right here in this room,” said Main, a highly enthusiastic 60-something who's clearly proud of his students.
“Changing Global Awareness One Blog at a Time” was the name of Main's presentation at the Colorado Association of Gifted and Talented State Conference in Denver, and the National Association of Gifted Children Conference in Atlanta in 2010.
This year, students began researching via Google Analytics, what visitors to their blogsite are doing in their own countries to save energy.
Fourteen-year-old Delainey Boyd chose Japan where she discovered a Tokyo shopping district called Shibyua. There, in the heavily congested pedestrian intersection, the Japanese have developed a padded, energy-absorbing crosswalk that generates enough electricity to power all the neon store lights and television screens in the district.
This week, Boyd is writing a blog about a Volkswagen vehicle that gets 258 miles to the gallon.
She said it's been “cool” to monitor energy usage at the school, knowing they're saving the district money.
“If we all do it we will change so much,” Boyd said. “We're just a little class and we've affected so much. I can't imagine what would happen if the whole world would do what we're doing.”
EMBRACING CONSERVATION
Anderson returns a portion of the utility cash savings to Main and his students to use to fund additional sustainability projects within the building.
In 2008-09, they purchased and installed “Smart Strips” — phantom power switches that increase the sleep mode, and cut power consumption when appliances such as projectors, televisions, and VCRs are turned off, but plugged in. At home, those invisible energy suckers could be your toaster, clock or stereo.
“The ninth-graders installed them in every room in the building and on every piece of equipment,” Main said. “Their job was to learn how to install them, learn how it worked, and instruct the teachers how to use them.”
By working with Anderson, students learned how to regulate the school's temperatures via a computer, further reducing utility bills by $2,000-$3,000 per month, Main said.
Since Anderson was hired in 2006, automatic light switches have been installed in schools, as well as energy-efficient light bulbs. Several schools, including Fruita 8-9, have achieved Energy Star status, reflecting their superior energy performance relative to similar buildings across the nation.
Saving energy is no longer just a class project of the gifted and talented students. The entire school population has become involved in conservation, Main said.
Lisa Will, who works with at-risk students, took over the recycling program with her students, with help from teacher Tracey Burke, and the Friends of Rachel club.
Shan Mixon's service learning class collaborated with science and social studies teachers to form a composting program after a class discussion about how to manage waste more responsibly.
“I mentioned to my kids we could do more, and they said, ‘why don't we?'” ninth-grade science teacher Shawn Gregg said.
Last spring Gregg and other teachers built five compost bins on school property where they intend to build raised garden beds this year. They've been growing compost for the past year from food scraps from the teachers' lounge, the food science class, sawdust from the wood shop, and leaves and grass clipping from the grounds crew.
Gregg's classroom contains 70 flower and vegetable starts waiting to be planted outdoors. A greenhouse is also in the works, he said.
‘EXCEPTIONAL'
Pete Dignan is executive director of CORE (Connected Organizations for a Responsible Economy), one of the sustainability champion award sponsors. Dignan served as one of the judges for the award.
There were a few factors that made Fruita 8-9 “exceptional,” Dignan said. One was the students' efforts to engage fellow students, faculty and the community in raising awareness about conservation, and then taking action in the building.
Judges also found the program's comprehensiveness surprising, considering the size of the school and the grade level of the students.
“It was exciting also, that it was a Western Slope school from a smaller town that was absolutely providing real leadership,” Dignan said.
The school was new in 2006 when Main challenged his students to look at the $15,000 per month utility bills and question why a new building was using so much energy.
“We looked at what we could do in this building through conservation to cut that down,” Main said.
Student-led conservation measures implemented over the past four years have saved the school thousands of dollars in utility bills, and have helped earn the school an Energy Star rating it didn't have when newly built.
Main and his students were surprised to learn their school had been nominated for the 2011 Sustainability Champion Award, a statewide recognition of groups who contribute significantly to the environment, economy and society.
At the 2011 Sustainable Opportunities Summit last month in Denver, Main learned that Fruita 8-9 had won the award, beating 40 other groups from across the state who were also nominated for the category of medium-sized organizations. Those groups of individuals come from within industry, educational institutions, business, nonprofits and local, state, and federal government.
The other two finalists were the City of Golden recycling program, and the Metropolitan District of Highlands Ranch water reclamation program.
The Sustainability award is sponsored by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and its partners — the Colorado Environmental Partnership, Connected Organizations for a Responsible Economy and ColoradoBiz Magazine.
“For (Fruita 8-9) to be named the state's sustainability champion of organizations with 50-500 employees is just extraordinary,” said David Miller, chair of Alpine Bank's Green Team, who along with colleague Kelli McLean, nominated the Fruita 8-9 School. “They beat out businesses, government — people on the Front Range where the heavy hitters are.”
“They're the little engine that could.”
A $36,000 SAVINGS
Thanks to a number of conservation measures initiated by the gifted and talented students, Fruita 8-9 School has cut its energy use by a third — which translates into an annual $36,000 savings in utility costs.
Main's first group of students started with recycling paper in 2006-07, after they noticed many classrooms were “swimming in paper.”
Other teachers and students currently manage the recycling, which now includes plastics, while Main's students have turned their attention to other sustainability projects.
The students invited the school district's energy manager Eric Anderson to Fruita 8-9 to discuss additional ways to save energy. Anderson registered the class in his Energy Star auditing software and showed them how to track monthly billings.
The eighth-graders began “hounding” teachers to turn off the lights and computer monitors when they left their classrooms. They also convinced building administrators to turn off parking lot lights when no one was using it. Lights were timed to go off after the custodians left for the night, and during the weekends when no one was there.
Those three changes immediately reduced utility bills by $1,000 per month, Main said.
In June, district-wide recycling was implemented.
The Fruita students led the way for that program, Anderson said.
STUDENT ENERGY BLOG
Main's students started blogging about energy in 2007-08.
Afterburnenergy.blogspot.com is the first student-run blog in School District 51. Each student researches and writes a weekly blog on a topical energy subject.
Students have written 150 blogs since January 2011 — and approximately 1,000 blogs over a four-year period. Those blogs have received 6,680 visits from 116 countries.
“Every bit of that started right here in this room,” said Main, a highly enthusiastic 60-something who's clearly proud of his students.
“Changing Global Awareness One Blog at a Time” was the name of Main's presentation at the Colorado Association of Gifted and Talented State Conference in Denver, and the National Association of Gifted Children Conference in Atlanta in 2010.
This year, students began researching via Google Analytics, what visitors to their blogsite are doing in their own countries to save energy.
Fourteen-year-old Delainey Boyd chose Japan where she discovered a Tokyo shopping district called Shibyua. There, in the heavily congested pedestrian intersection, the Japanese have developed a padded, energy-absorbing crosswalk that generates enough electricity to power all the neon store lights and television screens in the district.
This week, Boyd is writing a blog about a Volkswagen vehicle that gets 258 miles to the gallon.
She said it's been “cool” to monitor energy usage at the school, knowing they're saving the district money.
“If we all do it we will change so much,” Boyd said. “We're just a little class and we've affected so much. I can't imagine what would happen if the whole world would do what we're doing.”
EMBRACING CONSERVATION
Anderson returns a portion of the utility cash savings to Main and his students to use to fund additional sustainability projects within the building.
In 2008-09, they purchased and installed “Smart Strips” — phantom power switches that increase the sleep mode, and cut power consumption when appliances such as projectors, televisions, and VCRs are turned off, but plugged in. At home, those invisible energy suckers could be your toaster, clock or stereo.
“The ninth-graders installed them in every room in the building and on every piece of equipment,” Main said. “Their job was to learn how to install them, learn how it worked, and instruct the teachers how to use them.”
By working with Anderson, students learned how to regulate the school's temperatures via a computer, further reducing utility bills by $2,000-$3,000 per month, Main said.
Since Anderson was hired in 2006, automatic light switches have been installed in schools, as well as energy-efficient light bulbs. Several schools, including Fruita 8-9, have achieved Energy Star status, reflecting their superior energy performance relative to similar buildings across the nation.
Saving energy is no longer just a class project of the gifted and talented students. The entire school population has become involved in conservation, Main said.
Lisa Will, who works with at-risk students, took over the recycling program with her students, with help from teacher Tracey Burke, and the Friends of Rachel club.
Shan Mixon's service learning class collaborated with science and social studies teachers to form a composting program after a class discussion about how to manage waste more responsibly.
“I mentioned to my kids we could do more, and they said, ‘why don't we?'” ninth-grade science teacher Shawn Gregg said.
Last spring Gregg and other teachers built five compost bins on school property where they intend to build raised garden beds this year. They've been growing compost for the past year from food scraps from the teachers' lounge, the food science class, sawdust from the wood shop, and leaves and grass clipping from the grounds crew.
Gregg's classroom contains 70 flower and vegetable starts waiting to be planted outdoors. A greenhouse is also in the works, he said.
‘EXCEPTIONAL'
Pete Dignan is executive director of CORE (Connected Organizations for a Responsible Economy), one of the sustainability champion award sponsors. Dignan served as one of the judges for the award.
There were a few factors that made Fruita 8-9 “exceptional,” Dignan said. One was the students' efforts to engage fellow students, faculty and the community in raising awareness about conservation, and then taking action in the building.
Judges also found the program's comprehensiveness surprising, considering the size of the school and the grade level of the students.
“It was exciting also, that it was a Western Slope school from a smaller town that was absolutely providing real leadership,” Dignan said.
