Sunday, 24/11/2024 | 01:57 GMT+7
This year in New England, ACE
partnered with Next Step Living (NSL) to train students how to talk about
climate change and the importance of energy efficiency through the SEED Program
– that stands for Sustainable Energy Education Drive. Students recruited
community members to take advantage of the state’s free energy assessments and
energy upgrades, provided by NSL.
Through this partnership, ACE
educated 2,700 students with the ACE Assembly and trained 30 to take the lead
on the NSL energy project. Students like Grace Chin of Lincoln Sudbury-High
School mobilized 134 home energy assessments, saved families an estimated
$13,500 and yielded a greenhouse gas reduction equivalent to 97 metric tons of
CO2.
Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High
School kicked off its SEED program with a powerful all-school presentation by
Alliance for Climate Education. The ACE Assembly was a natural lead-in for
recruiting students to the SEED program, which promotes greenhouse-gas-reducing
efficiency upgrades in their community.
“Next Step Living has done a huge
amount to make sure SEED events are successful,” says Daniel Lewis, advisor to
the student environmental group. “They’ve made it easy for us to participate,
and they’ve shared a lot of their knowledge with students.
Lincoln-Sudbury has been creative
in finding opportunities to reach out to particular populations within the
town, including the students’ own parents. “Last spring we had a college fair
here on a Saturday, with 50 colleges tabling, and our SEED students spoke with
parents about getting a home energy assessment,” says Eleanor Burke, assistant
principal.
So far the SEED program at
Lincoln-Sudbury has raised $1,845 for water-bottle filling stations at the
school, a helpful step toward decreasing the number of plastic water bottles on
campus. The students were able to choose what initiative funds raised would go
toward, fostering a sense of ownership among the young community. In addition
to the fundraising, student volunteers signed up community residents for 92
home energy assessments, 13 evaluations of heating and cooling systems, and
even 12 assessments for rooftop solar power systems. Lincoln-Sudbury is also
renewing its program, with plans for expanding it to include other
environmental initiatives, for 2015.
Altogether these actions have saved
Lincoln-Sudbury families an estimated $22,246 on their annual utility bills and
reduced the community’s carbon footprint by 70 metric tons, the equivalent of
taking 14 cars off the road for a year.
Acespace.org