The Power Is in Their Hands

Project Teaches 6th-Graders They Can Help the Planet

Most middle school students who fiddled with the school's electrical wires and turned off the hall and bathroom lights would probably wind up in the principal's office.

But over the past week, sixth-graders at Seneca Ridge Middle School in Sterling have roamed the halls in semi-darkness.

It's part of an experiment designed by their science teacher, Rick Peck, to teach them how they can help reduce their carbon footprint by conserving energy.

"If we save energy, we'll, like, help the world," said Kurt Funkhouser, 12. "So we won't be killing the world, basically."

The experiment focuses on the school's C wing, which houses the sixth grade. Electricians tapped into the wing's transformer and put a doughnut-shaped meter around the wires to monitor how many kilowatts were being used at a given time.

One morning, teachers plugged in every electrical appliance they could, and students monitored the usage. The students also checked to see how much they were using on a typical day, then turned off the hall and bathroom lights and some classroom lights, and checked again.

"We were able to see the actual kilowatts at a particular moment being used by us, and not by PE, not by the seventh grade and not by the library," said Peck, who received a $5,000 grant from Dominion Virginia Power for the project, as well as $500 grants from the Chamberlain and Hrdlicka law firm and the Loudoun Educational Association. The school PTA has promised $2,000.

The idea took two years to bring to fruition, and its goal was to enlighten students about the source and consequences of the energy they consume.

"They learned that the actions that they take have physical consequences," Peck said. "Students don't care too much about the kilowatt hours, and they certainly don't care about saving the school money, but they absolutely care about the environment, and they absolutely don't want to be the ones responsible for killing off the last polar bear cub in the Arctic."

Some students had more ambitious ideas for reducing their carbon footprint, such as planting grass on the roof, and Peck said he would have liked to have experimented with turning off the air conditioning, which uses a large percentage of the school's electricity.

But the air conditioning is centrally controlled; for the C wing, monitoring light use proved to be the most practical. Of the 750 lights in the wing, 56 were disabled. According to the students' calculations, it has reduced their energy use by about 4 percent.

At first, the older students at the school wondered why the sixth-graders' halls were so dim, illuminated only by security lights.

"All the seventh- and eighth-graders walk by and they're like, 'What happened to the sixth-grade wing?' " said Meghan Kelly, 12, one of Peck's students. "We're like, 'We're saving energy,' and they say, 'That's cool.' "

On Tuesday, the students will hold a town hall-style meeting about what to do next to promote conservation awareness. But Peck has already seen signs that they are more aware.

"They now know that the leading way light bulbs get powered is by power plants that burn coal," he said. "Most kids had never thought about the connection, that every time they use the TV, the computer, the lights, the refrigerator, somewhere there's a smokestack, and somewhere someone's producing coal."

Kurt agreed. "My grandma has been trying to make us turn out the lights, and we'd always forget to," he said. "But now I turn the lights off more."

Jake Browning, 12, said the program has supplemented what he learned about energy use as a Boy Scout, and Meghan learned that besides turning off lights, she can conserve energy by taking shorter hot showers and unplugging electrical appliances when they are not in use.

"I knew that we were hurting the Earth" with overproduction of carbon dioxide, she said. "But now I know that I can make a difference."