Sayre Middle School Sayre Saves Energy Advisor: Sarah Cummins

Transcription

1 Sayre Middle School Sayre Saves Energy Advisor: Sarah Cummins Everyone s main idea about conserving energy is: turn off the lights. But, we decided to take things farther and educate people about the many different ways that we use energy in our lives, and about how we can reduce that usage. We have put together numerous projects for our school and community in which we have both educated children and adults about energy and have received successful results in conserving energy. Our projects have included: a reusable bag project to help decrease the use of plastic bags, collecting data and being awarded a VendingMiser to save energy on school vending machines, hosting two community energy carnivals, donating energy baskets for families of Habitat for Humanity, teaching all of our peers and teachers about recycling and organizing an aluminum can drive, organizing a school black out day, collecting over 300 gallons of used cooking oil and recycling it into biofuels at the University of Kentucky, planting an urban container garden, helping the school compost food waste, and performing an energy-themed play at community events. We have been busy this year making sure we teach as many people as we can about the importance of energy in our lives and encouraging people to do their best to conserve it.

2 Goal 1: Educating our peers and community about energy Activities and Tasks: We hosted 2 community energy carnivals; one was at the public library and one was in our gym. We partnered with the Center for Applied Energy Research to bring in a lot of different activities and we invited 3 local schools to participate. We made energy baskets as housewarming baskets for families who are part of Habitat for Humanity. We wrote a letter explaining how each item would save energy or help the environment. We went to grocery stores and taught people about the benefits of using reusable bags. We played games about recycling and energy sources with students and teachers at our school. We played a biofuels game and helped give advice about turning it into a video game. We asked the University of Kentucky to bring this game to our energy carnival, so it could be shared with the community. We worked with our drama teacher to write an energy-themed play and performed it at community events. We did the NEED Energy House activity to learn about insulation and energy conservation. We took a field trip to the Center for Applied Energy Research to learn about their biofuels project and tour the whole facility to learn about other energy projects they are doing. We went to a Family Nutrition Night in the community and taught people about growing their own food.

3 Energy Content and Resources: NEED Energy Carnival NEED Transportation Fuels NEED Energy House NEED Intermediate Energy InfoBook Center For Applied Energy Research Study Posters Bio Schools Biodiesel Information Pages Clean Fuels Coalition NEED Secondary Petroleum Fact Sheet NEED Exploring Oil and Gas and Fossil Fuels to Products Recycle Relay Thanks to a donation from our NEED Coordinator and several other organizations, universities and businesses, we were able to collect and hand out more than 300 reusable bags and encourage people to use them! National Geographic and Inspiration Green plastic bag facts Ready to help people learn about energy at the local library!

4 Student Leadership: 9 Energy Team Students participated in running the 2 community energy carnivals. 8 Energy Team Students did research, raised money, put together, and donated energy baskets. 8 Energy Team Students went to grocery stores to teach people about plastic vs. reusable bags. 8 Energy Team Students led games and activities for faculty and students. 8 Energy Team Students performed the energy-themed play in the community. 8 Energy Team Students went on the field trip to CAER, played the biofuels game and brought the information back to their school and community. They all organized the cooking oil recycling project and 4 of them volunteered on the day of community oil collection. 8 Energy Team Students did the NEED Energy House activity and put them on display for the Middle School to view. 2 Energy Team Students taught families in the community about growing their own food. Sharing recycling information and waste audit results with teachers and then organizing a friendly recycle relay competition to assess learning.

5 Evaluation: 450 students, teachers and families came to our energy carnivals, some from our school, some from local schools, and some families from the community. We spoke to more than 300 people in the community about using reusable bags. With the money we raised, we put together 5 energy baskets for families from Habitat for Humanity. We recycled 4,983 cans during our aluminum can drive. We bought 14 new recycling bins for our school with the money we raised form the aluminum can drive and taught everyone the correct things to put in them. We played games with 75 students and 20 teachers, to help them learn about recycling and energy. We shared recycling results with 170 students and 30 teachers. We performed our play for 150 people and have been asked to perform again next month for 200 people. Hello new home owners, We are the Sayre School Green Team and we put together this basket to make your new home a more environmentally friendly and better place. The items in this basket all either save energy, save water, reduce waste, or make your air quality better. The LED light bulb that we gave you last 25 times longer than incandescent light bulbs and the energy cost is way less in the long run (incandescent light bulbs cost $180 in energy while LED bulbs cost only $36 in energy). 90% of energy that comes out of an incandescent light bulbs is wasted heat energy and only 10% is light, where as in LED lights only 10% goes into heat while 90% goes into actual light for your home. Each of these light bulbs could last you 8 years!! The Belkin conserve socket that we gave you will help you conserve energy and money. When you set it for a selected amount of time, it will automatically shut off after the time elapses and save the energy that is normally wasted. It saves you money because when you waste that electricity, it adds to your electric bill. Every time you use the snack bags that you got you save money, plastic, water and electricity. The money you save is from not buying multiple bags, and the plastic is from not buying all those snack bags multiple times and throwing them in a landfill. The electricity is from not using electricity and water to produce a lot of plastic bags that aren t even recyclable. The house plant will make your home beautiful, add oxygen to your air and absorb some toxins that are in the air inside homes. It will help make the indoor air quality better. The Kitchen Aerator that we gave you will help you save water. If you put it on your kitchen sink it can save almost a gallon ever minute. It is really important to save water because we have less and less clean water to use in our world. If you walk out of a room and forget to turn the light off, it could use a lot of energy and cost extra, wasted money. But, the motion activated light control will turn off the lights for you! It can detect motion up to 25 feet away and you can set it for how long you want it to take to turn off after you leave a room. We really hope you have a happy home and enjoy these items that will help make your home more green. Sincerely, The Sayre Middle School Green Team (Aya, Coby, Tamara, Diana, Jasir, Rohma, Hope, and Omar) Talking to elementary students about conserving resources and playing a hands-on game with them so they could have a better understanding.

6 We did a compost experiment with 11 different small composts so we could see what amounts of browns and greens work to make the best compost. We also used worms vs. no worms. These are small and easy to take to classes or community events when we are teaching. We participated in a community family nutrition night to help people learn about growing their own food. We can use our compost to talk about how to recycle food and garden waste and how worms help gardens and decompose food waste.

7 Sayre/CAER co-hosted energy fair in the Sayre gym. Three schools came to participate in the 6 hour fair. We helped run the NEED booth and energy carnival activities and managed to have some learning experiences of our own, when we had a small break! University of Kentucky brought a solar car!

8 We got ready for our energy carnival by practicing games with each other. Then, we went to the library and invited the community to participate. We did the NEED Energy House activity over a period of 3 days. We built the cardboard houses, purchased insulation, and then made the houses cold or hot and measured temperatures to see if our insulation was effective.

9 Goal 2: Conserving Energy at School, at Home, and in the Community Activities and Tasks: We helped new Habitat for Humanity homeowners save energy by giving them energy conserving devices in the energy baskets. We went to grocery stores and passed out reusable bags for people to use. We organized a school black out day. Blackout Day!!! Check if had your lights on. A Check if you had your lights off. We recycled cans during the aluminum can drive. We bought new recycling bins for our school. We collected food waste to be composted and then used the compost on our garden. We collected and helped recycle more than 300 gallons of used cooking oil. We collected data and applied for a vending miser for our school vending machine. We built and started seeds for an urban container garden. B C D Recess/lunch/ elective F G H Dear teachers, This is the data sheet and letter we gave to teachers for black out day. The middle school green will be preparing an energy saving activity for next week. We are ing to ask that you help participate in our Friday's planned activity. On Friday, there will be a lights out blackout day. Although we are not requiring you participate, we encourage you to do so. If at some point of the day you need to turn on the lights, we will provide you with a chart by the hour. You will either mark yes if you turned them on, or no if you didn't. We are doing this in order to collect data to see if reducing the light usage was effective. We hope to be able to share with you soon how much energy we were able to save with the blackout day. Yours truly, The Sayre Middle School Green Team

10 Energy Content and Resources: NEED Blueprint for Student Energy Teams NEED Intermediate Energy InfoBook The Majestic Plastic Bag video 1bagatatime.com Project Learning Tree - Activity 37: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle NEED Exploring Oil and Gas NEED Fossil Fuels to Products Renewable Fuels Association Battling for the Barrel Presentation of results from the conversion of our cooking oil Oil and Natural Gas book Field trip to the Center for Applied Energy Research Playing the biofuels game

11 Student Leadership: 9 Energy Team Students organized black out days. 9 Energy Team Students organized, sent out communications, made school-wide announcements, came up with incentives, and shared results of the can drive. 9 Energy Team Students came up with compost projects and made their own mini compost to that they could experiment with and use to teach people. 8 Energy Team students passed out reusable bags to shoppers at local grocery stores. 9 Energy Team Students researched, raised money, and bought items to put together energy baskets. 9 Energy Team Students helped collect and transport used cooking oil to the Center for Applied Energy Research, where it could be turned into biofuels. 9 Energy Team Students built the container garden, planted seeds, and recruited 15 of their peers to help paint the containers. Presenting the energy baskets to a Habitat for Humanity family We were able to purchase items for the baskets by asking for donations from businesses in the community and by making recycled bags out of t-shirts and selling them and baked goods during school snack time. Hello, We are the Sayre Middle School Green Team. We are a group of middle schoolers who feel passionate about improving the environment. We are hoping that you can donate some items to help our efforts to supply Habitat for Humanity home owners with Eco-friendly baskets. We accepted an award from Mayor Gray for winning our category in the recycling can drive. One item we are in need of are LED lightbulbs. These would save energy and money, both of which the families need to save. This would be extremely important in our efforts to help these families. Another is a house plant. This would help improve the air quality of the home, as well as add a homely touch. Our final item we are hoping for, is a kitchen aerator. This would help save the expense of water bills, and help save water to give the world good, clean water. We hope you can help us make these people's lives better, and more green. Sayre Middle School Green Team

12 Evaluation: We collected and passed out 310 reusable bags and have 100 more to give out next month. We raised money and gave 5 energy baskets to Habitat for Humanity families. We recycled 4,983 aluminum cans. We bought 14 new recycling bins, so students and teachers can recycle their waste. We saved 43.9% of energy used by our vending machine. We built 2 garden beds and prepared and painted 6 recycled shipping pallets to use for growing food. We started 216 seeds in our classroom that are ready to be transplanted when it is warm enough. The Center for Applied Energy Research converted the used cooking oil we collected into 275 gallons of biofuel. After doing waste audits of the Sayre Elementary and Middle School, we decided that we needed to help educate everyone about what to recycle, but we also needed more bins. There just weren t enough places for people to put their recyclables. We used the money that we won from the Lexington can drive and bought more recycling bins for our school.

13 Delivering used cooking oil from our cafeteria to the Center for Applied Energy Research So much oil!! Greeting people as they come to drop off used cooking oil during our Gobble Grease Toss Recycle your Thanksgiving cooking oil at the Gobble Grease Toss Posted Date: 11/17/2015 2:00 PM Are you frying your Thanksgiving turkey this year? Recycle your used cooking oil in a safe, environmentally-friendly manner at the Gobble Grease Toss, sponsored by the city of Lexington, Sayre School, the University of Kentucky s Center for Applied Energy Research and Bluegrass Greensource. The Gobble Grease Toss will be held Friday, Nov. 27 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Sayre School, 194 N. Limestone. UK s Center for Applied Energy Research will work with Sayre Middle School students to convert the used cooking oil into biofuel. We are currently investigating the transformation of oils from biological sources to transportation fuels, like renewable diesel, with support from the National Science Foundation, says Dr. Eduardo Santillan-Jimenez with UK s Center for Applied Energy Research. Used cooking oil or yellow grease is a very interesting starting material for the production of biofuels and thus, the Gobble Grease Toss provides a great opportunity for Sayre Middle School Green Team students to collect this material, share it with us and learn about the science behind biofuels as we convert their sample to fuel in our laboratory. * Because it can cause problems in the sanitary sewer, cooking oil and grease should never be poured down sink drains. It can solidify in pipes and clog sewer lines in your home or the city s sewer lines. Clogs in the city s sewer lines can lead to sanitary sewer overflows the discharge of untreated sewage into streets, yards and creeks. Though used cooking oil can be hardened in the refrigerator and disposed in your green trash cart, the Gobble Grease Toss is an opportunity to recycle your used cooking oil to keep it out of the landfill and the sanitary sewer system. The Sayre Middle School Green Team has been collecting used cooking oil from their school cafeteria and delivering it to UK, says Sarah Cummins, Sayre Middle School Green Team Sponsor. The students are eager to be a part of this year s Gobble Grease Toss. Recycling the used cooking oil will keep it out of the landfill and turn it into something usable while contributing to the scientific research being done by the CAER on this renewable energy source.! Press release about part of our cooking oil recycling project

14 Collecting data on the energy use in our vending machines (with killo-watt meters), learning about the Energy Miser from our regional energy coordinator after we were awarded one, and installing it. After it was installed, we saved so much energy!

15 How do we turn this into an edible garden...? Create an urban container garden!