“Reduce Reuse Recycle” is one of the most common phrases shared when spreading awareness about sustainability, but what does it really look like?
Recently, The Helix Environmental Club is making large strides to improve energy conservation around our school primarily focusing on reducing. 18 dedicated students nicknamed “The Wattwatchers” are improving their school behind the scenes while competing nationally. Through the Renew Our Schools energy competition, tiny tasks can have large impacts without most students even noticing. Helix is already far ahead of other schools with its monitoring of energy use, but The Helix Wattwatchers are demonstrating additional improvement.
The competition is against five other schools and happens semiannually. It requires the installation of an eGauge that tracks all energy generated and used for the school. Looking at the data, we surprisingly have an energy surplus during the day, due to the solar energy generated from the parking lot. But the real problem is what happens when the sun sets, “vampire energy” is energy we are spending with no one using. Even in the middl
e of the night, our school is using around the same amount of energy compared to peak school hours. Reducing and spreading awareness about vampire energy is the first step to limiting our energy consumption as a whole.
Some tasks the team is working on completing are school-wide energy audits, advocacy within the school, overall learning from professionals, and more! All this insight will hopefully inspire the movement of energy conservation into the community.
As President of Environmental Club, I interviewed our VP Kennedy Haytastingh to see her perspective on the impacts of this competition:
Why do you think energy conservation is important?
“Energy conservation is one of the most pivotal aspects within the conservation field, but the crucial benefit of energy conservation is that it is a people’s problem. The public can see their energy usage directly affecting them, and it unifies them. It doesn’t matter if you are passionate about the environment or reluctant to educate yourself and unconcerned with global issues, we all see our bank account draining when we aren’t energy wise” says Kennedy.
What are some of the most valuable lessons you’ve learned from this competition?
“I’ve learned the difficulties of creating a strong, motivated, and unified team. Every member of our team is extremely passionate about environmental issues, however the unification aspect of completing tasks has proven to be difficult. Despite this I’m so extremely grateful to have so many students around me who care so much about such important issues,” Kennedy shares.
Even though the Wattwatchers have not achieved the results they wanted in the competition, Kennedy really exemplifies how it’s not really about the competition itself rather the impact. Energy conservation not only helps you save money but it’s also reducing the depletion of the limited resources we have naturally. This whole process has been a learning experience and the team is excited to keep fighting energy conservation in our community!