MAKING A WORLD
OF DIFFERENCE

YES! TOUR AND GUIDEBOOK ENERGIZES STUDENTS

Youth for Environmental Sanity! (YES!) conducts a national Healthy People and Healthy Planet tour of schools, providing speakers, theatrical performances, a multi-media slideshows and even a band "to educate, inspire and empower" students to take positive action promoting ecological habits such as energy conservation, recycling and eating low on the food chain.

While on a local speaking tour of high schools in November 1993, YES! organizers worked with students in Santa Cruz, California and helped them conduct an energy audit of their school. The students realized their school and other schools in the district could reduce their energy use almost 40 percent by installing energy-efficient lights and other technologies, and they convinced the school board to go forward with the project.

"These switches [to energy-efficient technologies] saved the entire school district approximately $160,000 a year, including $24,000 a year for the students' high school. We decided that this should happen all over," said Ryan Eliason, founder of the program, who noted that many schools are still using old, inefficient lights.

Building on the success in their own community, YES! published a manual, the Green Schools Energy Project Step-by-Step Manual, that identifies 11 steps (listed below) students should take to convince their school district to switch to environmentally-sound technologies:

• Step 1: Find out what kind of lights your school district uses.
• Step 2: Form a group to work on the project.
• Step 3: Prepare for a meeting to tell people about the project, and to get more people involved in helping.
• Step 4: Hold a good meeting.
• Step 5: Investigate your school district's energy use; find out how much money your school spends on utility bills.
• Step 6: Figure out how much energy and money your school district can save, and how much pollution you can prevent, by switching to T-8 bulbs.
• Step 7: Build a coalition of supportive people to help convince your school district to make these changes. Get endorsements of the Green Schools Energy Project.
• Step 8: Approach your school board and encourage them to make these energy-saving changes happen at your school.
• Step 9: Follow-up with your school district to make sure they make these important changes.
• Step 10: Celebrate! You and your group just saved your school district lots of energy and money, and helped to save our planet.
• Step 11: Start another project.

YES! encourages students to promote energy-efficiency improvements at the district level rather than school by school, since it takes only a little more work and has a much greater and longer lasting impact. They are willing to meet with student groups interested in environmental projects at their schools.

For More Information: Ryan Eliason, Development Director, or Joel Chatto, Tour Coordinator, YES!, 706 Frederick St., Santa Cruz, CA 95062; (408) 459-9344; Fax: (408) 458-0255; E-mail: yes@yesworld.org; Web: http://www.yesworld.org/.

STUDENTS COMPETE FOR THE GREEN CUP

In the spring of 1990, members of Harvard's student-based Environmental Action Committee initiated a campus conservation competition. With funds from the University, students coordinated a campaign to reduce energy use in the dorms. They collected information on energy use, organized student activities in the dorms, conducted a media campaign and handed out prizes to those with the most effective programs. During the six months of the competition, the University decreased energy consumption by 25 percent, saving approximately $500,000.

Since then, inter-dorm energy-efficiency and resource conservation contests have yielded impressive results on other campuses as well. George Washington University, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Tufts University and others have held their own Green Cups.

For More Information: Michael Lichten, Director of Physical Resources in Faculty of Arts and Sciences, 14 Story St., 3rd Fl., Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138; (617) 495-4216; Fax: (617) 495-8989.

NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION PROMOTES CAMPUS ECOLOGY

The Campus Ecology program at National Wildlife Federation (NWF) promotes leadership and action within the campus community in order to establish environmentally sound practices at colleges and universities. This group published Ecodemia (1996), which details campus greening projects including energy-efficiency and renewable initiatives. Ecodemia ($14.95) is illustrated, indexed and abundantly annotated with a bibliography at the end of each chapter. (Call (800) 822-9919 to order a copy.)

The program's newsletter, the Campus Ecology Connection, offers updates on campus activities, while the Campus Ecology Yearbook takes an annual look at efforts to green colleges, universities and communities. The Yearbook is on-line at http://www.linkmag.com/.

For More Information: Julian Keniry, Campus Ecology Program, National Wildlife Federation, 8925 Leesburg Pike, Vienna, VA 22184; (703) 790-4322; Fax: (703) 790-4442; E-mail: keniry@nwf.org; Web: http://www.nwf.org/nwf/campus/.

GW LAUNCHES GREEN UNIVERSITY INITIATIVE

The Green University Initiative was conceived by a group of students, faculty and staff at George Washington University (GW) in 1994. After many meetings, these participants, along with the GW Administration, launched the initiative to infuse sustainability and environmental management ethics into all aspects of life at GW - including its procurement activities.

In December 1994, GW and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signed a unique agreement to work together in a public/private partnership to advance GW's efforts to become the nation's first model "green" university. Since then, GW has established new internal management policies and an organization to coordinate the Green University Initiative. Six committees are charged with guiding its implementation. The committees are run by volunteers comprised of students, faculty and GW staff. A "living" strategic plan developed by the committees guides the work of the Initiative. GW has also established an Institute for the Environment in order to bring formal direction and functionality to the Initiative.

EPA's participation has "motivated our University to take proactive measures towards becoming a sustainable institution," says Polly Berman, Assistant Director of the GW Institute for the Environment.

GW maintains an active Website and informational clearinghouse. The University of South Carolina plans to use the GW Strategic Plan in developing a similar greening program. Other schools with sustainable initiatives include Brown, Tufts, Rutgers, University of Pennsylvania, University of Wisconsin at Madison and University of Virginia. (For more on campus programs, see the Brown is Green Website at http://www.envstudies.brown.edu/environ/.)

For More Information: Polly Berman, Assistant Director, GW Institute for the Environment, 2121 Eye Street, NW, Suite 603, Washington, DC 20052; (202) 994-3366; Fax: (202) 994-0723; E-mail: greenu@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu; Web: http://www.gwu.edu/~greenu/.

ALLIANCE TO SAVE ENERGY CHARGES AHEAD WITH GREEN SCHOOLS PROGRAM

The Alliance to Save Energy, a Washington, DC-based non-profit organization, launched a pilot Green Schools Program in 1996 aimed at "using energy efficiency to strengthen schools." The project combines energy management and retrofit intervention in school facilities with hands-on cooperative instruction for students. As part of the program, sites in two Washington State cities, Seattle and Takoma, are helping to evaluate various energy-related educational materials and programs that can be replicated in other school districts. Below are some of the activities of the Green Schools pilot project:

Students at the B.F. Day Elementary School in Seattle organized an energy conference, conducted energy audits, formed an energy patrol and encouraged their school custodian and staff to reduce energy use.

Students in Seattle's South Shore Middle School are studying the energy efficiency of school windows in order to evaluate the costs and benefits of various weatherization and retrofitting techniques. They are also surveying their peers on their awareness and attitudes toward various energy issues and plan to display the survey results to generate interest in the project and develop slogans on saving energy to go on the school's electronic reader board.

At Roosevelt High School in Seattle, students have located an interactive display of the school's energy consumption in the school lobby. Students are urged to guess the cost to heat the school for a month in the winter; the winner gets a pizza!

For More Information: Marrilee Harrigan, Alliance to Save Energy, 1200 18th St., NW, Suite 900, Washington, DC 20036; (202) 331-0666; Fax: (202) 331-9588; E-mail: info@ase.org; Web: http://www.ase.org/.