New Hope Middle School sixth-grader Lela Meaux said she has learned many things this school year, but one major takeaway is “that turning off one thing can go a long way in saving energy and saving money.”
Meaux, along with seventh-grader Abby Daffron and eighth-grader Will Stanton, made a presentation to parents and school board members on Monday at the Whitfield County Board of Education meeting on the efforts that New Hope Middle’s energy team has made to conserve energy during the last year.
The energy team, comprised of more than 30 students from across all grades and 14 staff members, is “actively engaged in energy conservation efforts” at the school and at home, said Casey Mitchell, a sixth-grade science teacher at New Hope Middle.
Mitchell said she has enjoyed seeing the team “that has taken something and just ran with it.”
Making a change for the future
Mitchell said the idea for an energy team developed when she heard about the environmental hazards of microplastics nine years ago while working with scientists and educators at Tybee Island. She said there was a concerted effort to educate the teachers on the issue so that those teachers would in turn educate students.
“That has stuck with me for almost 10 years now,” Mitchell said. “They wanted something to change and to make sure that kids learn about it because it’s going to be their future and they’re going to be making decisions for us one day.”
Mitchell said while visiting the National Science Teacher Association conference in Atlanta last year she came across a booth for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).
“That’s how I found out about the TVA School Uplift grant,” she said. “The grant is given to schools to help educate staff and students about energy conservation, like saving electricity, and making sure that we’re using our resources in a way that we can use the money that we normally spend on electricity and natural resources and put it back into the schools to fund other things.”
Mitchell said the team has had “wonderful success” this year.
“Our team has jumped on board,” she said. “We are educating the leaders of today.”
The energy team has several community partners that have been involved with conservation efforts at the school, including North Georgia EMC, the Dalton-Whitfield Solid Waste Authority, TVA and the Whitfield Education Foundation.
New Hope Middle teacher Cami Baldivid said she wrote a grant last year to fund a trip for the energy team to visit the Dalton-Whitfield Solid Waste Authority’s recycling center. She said the energy team members have “really taken the reins and been proactive.”
“Looking at the end of this year, we’re planning to do a charter that we’re going to implement for next year,” Baldivid said. “This is not something that’s going to finish at the end of the year. We’re going to keep going with it because we feel that it’s very important for the kids. Monthly, we analyze looking at our bills and teach them how to look at graphs and data.”
Setting goals
Baldivid said the energy team has a list of goals for the remainder of the school year.
“We know that there are things we can’t physically do to the school building, and we know some things are lofty with lots of money involved, but the things that we can change, we want to change,” she said. “Our goals are to reduce our energy consumption by 8% by June, to implement three different energy-efficient measures from our opportunities registry that we have, to track electrical gas usage, and then we’re just trying to increase our staff energy awareness consumption. People want to save money at home with their electric bill and we can do the same in the school building.”
One of the things the energy team members have already been able to see accomplished is the replacement of thermal insulation on all bare piping on the school’s domestic water system.
“These were things that we thought we could do that are minimal cost to us to help us to win the (TVA grant),” Baldivid said. “We’ve also reduced our quantity of classroom decorative lighting, and we’ve added some LED bulbs that use less electricity. We’ve trained our staff to actually turn off their ViewSonic (smart boards). If they’re not turned off properly, even just the slightest movement can turn them back on, so that uses energy.”
Baldivid said the team is making steady progress within the school.
“Before our long (school) breaks, we have a team of two that are assigned to go with a clipboard and check with teachers to make sure everything in that room is either unplugged or turned off,” she said.
Stanton said groups within the energy team “make sure that the assigned rooms have all the lights, computers, lamps and ViewSonic boards turned off.”
Bringing awareness
Daffron said the team members play a vital role in bringing awareness about the importance of energy conservation.
“Students were sent home with a flier that told them how to save energy at their homes, and students on the energy team have given out awards to teachers that have been conserving their energy,” she said.
Meaux said energy team members have been able to participate in trips and activities, including the field trip to the Dalton-Whitfield Solid Waste Authority and both a science night and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) Day at New Hope Middle, “where we got to see all of the jobs that you can do if you work at TVA and we also got to see some cool drones and a (TVA) robot dog that can go places that might not be safe for humans.”
Stanton said there are more events planned.
“The seventh-grade students on the energy team will be visiting New Hope Elementary School fifth-graders who are upcoming sixth-graders, so that they can learn how to save energy as well,” he said.
Stanton said he is looking forward to New Hope Middle’s school-wide solar-powered car race later this month.
“That should be fun,” he said.
Having ‘a really big impact’
While Stanton has enjoyed being a member of the energy team, he said it has been “hard to change habits.”
Daffron agrees.
“Energy-saving habits are really hard to keep, but they do have a really big impact,” she said. “I feel a lot of pride when we get to go around the school and shut down everything knowing that we’re saving a lot of money and energy, and also when I see other students doing just the bare minimum to (save) energy.”
Because of their efforts, Mitchell said the school will be awarded $10,000 this year from TVA’s School Uplift program.
“They gave us some choices to spend the $10,000 and the whole school voted on a wellness outdoor lab,” she said.
The outdoor lab can be used for health activities, counseling and reading, among other functions. The lab will consist of new picnic tables, a portable whiteboard, disc golf and badminton supplies, and audiobooks and paperback books.
“We will be getting that sometime next year,” Mitchell said. “The students are super excited about that. We’ve learned a lot, had a lot of fun and we’re hoping to continue.”
Superintendent Mike Ewton said at the meeting that he is proud of the efforts made by the energy team members at New Hope Middle.
“When you have something like this that is such a great learning experience but also gives the real-life benefit of saving real dollars that we can reallocate to schools and classrooms, that’s a win-win all the way around,” Ewton said. “So thank you all for your efforts.”