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Earth Day, Each Day
By Mary Katherine Atkins ’10, courtesy of Kent News |
January is an important month of winter term at Kent School because it marks the beginning of an annual challenge: the Green Cup Challenge. The Green Cup Challenge is an interschool competition designed for students to encourage students to reduce their electricity use and to lower Greenhouse gas emissions. The month-long contest also raises awareness about climate change and energy conservation. Across New England, schools compete against each other to lower their usage. The school that lowers their consumption use in previous years by the greatest margin takes first place.
Kent first participated in the Green Cup Challenge in 2008. Unfortunately, Kent’s first time in this energy challenge did not end well. Rather than reducing energy use, Kent actually consumed more energy, putting Kent near last place in the Green Cup Challenge. Luckily, Kent revived itself in 2009 when the school reduced energy use by four percent.
Kent’s Environmental Club has been raising awareness on how to accomplish this goal; it advises the community to do simple things such as turning lights off when leaving a room, unplugging electrical devices when they are not in use, turning off laptops at night, and foregoing laziness by taking the stairs rather than the elevator . In conjunction with these efforts, compact fluorescent light bulbs have been distributed in some dorms to replace incandescent light bulbs. Mr. Benjamin, an AP Environmental Science teacher, says, “These are all simple things that we should be doing on a daily basis.” Mr. Benjamin hopes that students will continue to do their part to reduce energy even when the Green Cup Challenge is over.
In order to promote a competitive spirit, Kent provides incentives to energy-conscious students who successfully reduce their energy use. The dorms on campus compete with each other to see which dorm can collectively reduce energy use the most each week. At each Monday meeting over the course of the month, the winning dorm will be announced and be rewarded with a prize that uses no resources or extra energy. This year, the winning dorm will receive a dress down day during one day of Saturday classes.
In addition to the Green Cup Challenge’s aim to promote the reduction of energy use for environmental and financial reasons, Kent has an even bigger goal for its students and faculty. If the Kent community reduces its energy use by five percent or more from December to April, twenty-five percent of the money saved will be donated to disaster relief in Haiti.
Students have rallied together to reduce energy use in hopes of reaching or exceeding the percent goal so that money can be given to Haiti and so Kent can place well in the Green Cup Challenge. Hopefully, this experience will coerce students into the habit of being more frugal with energy use on a regular basis. It is important to remember that each person’s contribution helps the environment, one light bulb, or one tree, at a time.
