First student-driven green initiative challenge prompts green curricula for all schools?

March 10, 1:28 AMDC Youth Issues ExaminerAisha Ali

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“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

Most recently, a committed group of thoughtful citizens, including 150 day, boarding, public, and private school students in 24 States and Canada, arduously researched various green initiatives that could ultimately cause individuals to change their view of the world in which we live.

The Green Cup Challenge (GCC) is a competition involving students attending the aforementioned school types that believe in a sustainable environment, as they find ways to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions on school campuses.

Originally designed to raise awareness on climate change and energy consumption, the GCC promotes “green curricula," through which teachers and students assess how much energy their schools use and how it immediately affects the environment. The GCC is very unique because it is the first and only national student-driven initiative to build awareness of resource conservation through an energy challenge. During the GCC, students learn hands-on the importance of energy conservation and the role each individual plays when building a safe and sustainable future.

Similar to other curricula, if lessons are presented through activism projects, students can more easily assess circumstantial cause and effect. For instance, if a teacher tells his/her students recycling is good for the environment, simply placing a recycling bin in front of them insisting they should recycle, most likely students will not grasp the crucial benefits of recycling  and how the environment is affected when one does not recycle, as opposed to when one does. 

Yet, if you show a world depleted of natural resources because individuals failed to recycle goods mass produced from these resources, while also actively involving students through experiments, they will understand the importance of recycling and how their actions directly impact the environment. This is the entire thinking behind the GCC: if students actively participate in reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions at their schools, they will better understand the importance of resource conservation and how their actions directly impact the environment.

Schools involved in the challenge must be creative in finding ways to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. When concerning energy consumption, students can perform an energy audit to assess how much energy their school currently uses, which could reduce costs once an effective energy savings plan is developed. Additionally, students could perform a waste audit to help generate a plan to better discard of waste. Developing a waste plan could result in an effective recycling program, which would not only include those recyclable goods of which everyone immediately thinks such as plastic, paper, glass, and aluminum cans, but also printer cartridges, for example. Furthermore, small efforts such as turning off lights in unoccupied rooms or switching off computers, photocopiers/printers and other electrical appliances not being used could contribute greatly to energy conservation.

According to Peg Watson, founder and president of the Green Schools Alliance (GSA), schools returning to the GCC often encounter difficulties when trying to establish more ways to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions than first-time participants.  Watson says returning schools experience such difficulties because not only were they efficient in reducing energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions during the previous GCC, but also they maintain a low level of energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions post challenge.  Hence, it almost becomes impossible to further reduce their energy usage or greenhouse gas emissions.  Yet, this does not discourage returning schools, for it only makes the challenge more worthwhile.

Top performers of the GCC can achieve as much as an 18 percent reduction in electricity usage, which in turn, produces thousands of dollars in savings for school utility costs. During the 2009 GCC, all participating schools had to achieve an aggregated electrical energy reduction of 7 percent, minimally.

Ecometrica gets to fulfill its mission

During the challenge, I had a chance to speak with Bertrand Revenaz and Ali Rivers at Ecometrica, a Montreal-based independent research company that has an additional Scotland office, which conducts assessments and creates tools to measure greenhouse gases and carbon emissions. In keeping with its youth-oriented mission to help promote green curricula within schools, Ecometrica served as a sponsor for the GCC.

Both Revenaz and Rivers discussed the importance of green curricula and how Ecometrica's role as a sponsor not only served as a catalyst for students to develop and capture statistical data through surveys and scientific investigations, but also helped students to understand the steps needed to practice resource conservation. Additionally, the practical skills gained during their analyses exhibited how a potential career in the green industry may look. 

“Ecometrica could have provided a greenhouse gas (GHG) assessment for each participating school to avoid them from doing so-- but what would students have learned from that,” Revenaz said. “Ecometrica supports...green curricula and schools preparing their students for the possibility of entering the green jobs industry.”

“Plus, it makes it even more exciting for students to research and find solutions for themselves— this is what the challenge is all about,” Rivers interjected. “These students are so devoted; they already understand the importance of conservation.  We didn’t want to take that experience of self-analysis and investigating away from them.”

However in the end, Ecometrica will provide its expertise with GHG assessments to three schools who wrote the most compelling essays and exhibited the most dedication to the green cause.  The three lucky schools who will receive the assessments are: Hill School, Princeton Day School, and Cary Academy

“At the end of the challenge, Ecometrica will provide each of the three winning schools with a GHG assessment to test if their initial assessments were accurate," Rivers said. 

“However, Ecometrica will also go a step further in its reward, not only providing a full emissions summary of  their school, but also identifying those areas where they can save additional costs and use even less energy," Revenaz said. 

This additional component Ecometrica offers will present an advantage for those winning schools when concerning the next GCC. As Watson noted during our interview, each time a school returns to the challenge, it experiences difficulties when further reducing its energy consumption and emissions. Yet, with Ecometrica providing its expertise and additional ways in which these winning schools can save, perhaps this will get these schools thinking of alternatives for the next GCC.

Yet, Revenaz says the GCC is not only about students affecting change on school campuses, but also within larger realms such as their communities. “We want students to take what they have learned from the challenge and apply it to their everyday lives— we want students to encourage their parents and communities to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions,” Revenaz said.

"I think once people understand energy conservation or reduced emissions result into cost-effective savings as well, they will become more and more excited about engaging in conservation methods," Revenaz said.

Please check out the following video submitted by Choate Rosemary Hall during the GCC.   All participating schools had to submit a creative video as part of the qualifying process.  This video is so hilarious!