Think! Energy and Take Action!

em • feature
Think! Energy and Take Action!
by Gary Swan
Gary Swan is vice president
of the National Energy Foundation. E-mail: gary@nef1.org.
For more information about
the "Think! Energy" program,
visit www.nef1.org.
Fans of the Purdue Boilermakers will tell you late September in West Lafayette,
IN, is football season. Purdue Pete, uniformed in the nostalgic old gold and black,
rallies the fans at Ross-Ade Stadium, and the crowd gets energized for another
glorious Big Ten Saturday home game.
These days, Boilermaker fans aren’t the only ones
in West Lafayette getting a late-September energy
boost. Less than a mile away at Happy Hollow
Elementary, 161 5th graders and their teachers are
getting energized to “Think! Energy” and “Take
Action!” about using our precious energy resources
more wisely and about taking better care of the
world in which we live.
is secured through the use of an instructional
PowerPoint presentation, interspersed with fun,
hands-on activities. The energy efficiency theme
becomes clear in a hurry. Students become engaged
in a discussion of where our energy comes from,
why we need it, how we get it, how we use it, and
what kinds of impacts occur because we use it. Oh,
and what can I do about it.
“Think! Energy” is an energy efficiency education
program of the National Energy Foundation (NEF),
a national 501 (c) (3) nonprofit educational organization headquartered in Salt Lake City, UT. In West
Lafayette, the program is sponsored by Vectren,
the area’s provider of natural gas. In Indianapolis,
Citizens Gas and Indianapolis Power and Light,
the natural gas and electric utilities, respectively,
servicing Indianapolis and greater Marion County,
collaboratively support the program. Up north in
Elkhart, Gary, and other rust belt communities,
Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) provides the program. Several hundred
miles to the east, schools throughout central and
eastern Pennsylvania receive the program compliments of PPL Electric Utilities.
The lights turn on in these young minds. They
distantly hear things in the mass media about
climate change, about energy security, about the
health hazards of polluted air, water, and land. But
most of them haven’t ever really made the connection that if they install a new, more efficient
showerhead, or kitchen sink aerator in their home;
or replace an incandescent light bulb with a
compact fluorescent bulb; or take a shorter shower;
or learn to turn off the TV, computer, or lights
when they leave the room; or turn down the thermostat, they can make a difference.
It’s Monday morning, September 29, at Happy
Hollow. Marilyn Clark and Joannie Reeder, one of
NEF’s elite teams of “Think! Energy” presenters,
arrive at the school around 8:30 a.m., check in with
school administration, and set up in the gymnasium. 161 students is an unusually large number of
students for one presentation (the average is 75),
but NEF presenters are prepared for any contingency, including lots of potentially unruly students.
The students enter with their teachers. The presentation begins, and the students’ collective attention
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This is exciting stuff! But the best is yet to come. As
the end of the presentation draws near, stacks of
colorful boxes are carried into the gym. The boxes
say “Think! Energy” and everyone gets one. The
NEF presenter opens a box for all to see. Inside are
various energy efficiency devices, from showerheads to shower timers, from digital thermometers
to flow rate test bags. If the students were down in
Indianapolis, they’d get a couple of compact fluorescent light bulbs, too. Then the students learn
that they are supposed to take these devices and
gadgets home and actually use them. Too cool.
This isn’t just any old school program where little
Johnny takes the box home, and despite the best
of intentions, it sits on the shelf. Each student is also
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“Think! Energy”
gives the children
a set of tools
to actually do
something that
positively impacts the Earth.
given a “Household Report Card” to fill out with
mom or dad or another adult. The report card asks
if the showerhead or aerator got installed; if the
furnace filter alarm, providing an alert that the filter
is dirty, has been attached; if an incandescent bulb
was replaced by a compact fluorescent light bulb;
and what kind of energy is used to heat the home
and its water. If the student brings back the completed report card, they get a “Think! Energy” wristband. If the teacher is able to collect at least 80%
of their students’ completed report cards, and
sends them to NEF, they receive a $100 mini-grant
for their classroom. NEF gathers the thousands of
report cards, conducts a detailed analysis, and
comes up with some impressive amounts of natural
gas, electricity, water, and wastewater that are
saved through the implementation of the program.
And it all happens because of the kids.
Marilyn and Joannie thank the teachers, thank the
administrators, and thank the students for being
involved and for helping to create a better Earth.
They pack up their projector, their teaching materials, their posters and other workshop supplies,
and head down the road to the next group of
young minds waiting to be energized to save energy. In just one week, schools in Lafayette, Merrillville, Terre Haute, Evansville, Bloomington, LaPorte,
South Bend, Elkhart, Michigan City, and Indianapolis will get a friendly visit from the “Think!
Energy” team.
E
Conserve Resources • Protect the Environment
Benefit from the Advantages
* * *
The Think! Energy Program
The “Think! Energy” program in Indiana began in
2007. Indiana utilities (Vectren, Citizens Gas, IPL,
and NIPSCO) partnered with NEF to implement an
innovative energy education program that would
deliver verifiable, cost-effective energy savings for
schools and their students’ families. This approach
has been continued and expanded due to the overwhelming success from teacher and educational
administrators’ perspectives and high customer satisfaction from the participants, according to Kim
Talley, Indiana Program Director for the Wisconsin
Energy Conservation Corporation in Indianapolis.
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Students are an excellent group to lead the way in
creating behavioral change when it comes to
energy usage. Sunny Dent, NEF’s vice president of
program operations, says, “Children care about the
Earth. “Think! Energy” gives the children a set of
tools to actually do something that positively impacts
the Earth. You see the enthusiasm and excitement in
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“Think! Energy” is a feel-good education program,
but it’s also a program with a great deal of substance. Not many education programs can claim,
for example, that in one state alone (Indiana), an
annual total of more than 4,200 megawatt hours
of electricity, 383 decatherms of natural gas, and
93 million gallons of water have been saved
through basic program implementation. And these
numbers just count the savings from energy
efficiency home retrofits (i.e., more efficient technologies being installed by the student and a
parent). What is not counted is the savings and
future savings from behavioral change in the
student's home.
The “Think! Energy” program uses an instructional PowerPoint presentation, interspersed with fun, hands-on activities to engage students
in a discussion of where our energy comes from, why we need it, how we get it, and how we use it.
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their faces when you give a presentation. They
understand that the earth has given us these gifts,
and we need to take care of them.”
The program has proven very effective at reaching
diverse populations as well. “The “Think! Energy”
Program has proven to be an excellent way to provide important energy conservation to low-income
families, who typically live in the most inefficient
homes. Children exposed to the “Think! Energy”
Program not only are helping their families conserve energy, but also their schools through the
formation of energy action teams. For both schools
and low income families, energy costs are among
the largest single monthly budget items. Reducing
energy costs can make a real difference in the lives
of low income families and the schools that serve
them,” says Carey Lykins, President and CEO of
Citizens Energy Group.
“Think! Energy” is on the rise, and could be
coming soon to your community. A significant new
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initiative is in the works with Consumers Energy, a
major electric and gas utility in Michigan, to reach
more than 13,000 students, teachers, and households in several key Michigan communities,
including Flint, Kalamazoo, Saginaw, and Jackson. That program will likely reach between 150
and 200 schools during the 2009–2010 school
year. Interest is brimming from other potential electric and natural gas utility sponsors across the country being required to strengthen their energy
efficiency programs.
The program has continued to grow both in
Indiana and Pennsylvania. Sponsored student
participation in the Indiana program has more than
tripled from 2007 to 2009, and the Pennsylvania
program has expanded to reach around 11,000
students, teachers, and households. Pennsylvania’s
program also includes energy literacy workshops
for 150 teachers during 2009–2010, and the
Indianapolis program has added an intensive
“Energy Action in Schools” effort to help reduce
energy usage at school facilities in the Indianapolis
Public Schools district.
12 em january/february 2010
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To establish a “Think! Energy” program in your state
or locale, typically a partnership must be built
between a sponsoring electric or natural gas utility (a
combined sponsorship of electric and gas is ideal),
the state’s department of education, local education
agencies, and NEF. Utilities often include the program as a part of their energy efficiency portfolio,
alongside other demand-side management initiatives, such as rebate programs. Effective programs
are usually targeted to students in grades 4-8.
In addition to its energy literacy mission, NEF has
a creed: “Think! about energy, Talk! about energy,
Take Action! about our energy for the future.” As
the young students of today, and future leaders of
tomorrow, learn to take action, they will help create
a world where energy is used more responsibly
and where the clean air, water, and land resources
that we so cherish today will continue to enrich our
lives in the future. em
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