Doreen Petri - Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy

How to reduce your carbon footprint and save your school $11,000

Doreen Petri teaches AP Environmental Science and Anatomy and Physiology at the Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy in Erie, Pa. Petri has translated classroom content into action through an energy initiative at her school.

The initiative helps students understand the connection between their energy use and climate change and allows them to take a lead role taking actions that save the school energy and money on the electric bill.

Petri and her students began the energy initiative by conducting an energy audit. To keep the project simple, they focused on lighting. Students counted light bulbs in the school, determined the wattage used and performed calculations.

They determined that about 46 percent of the school’s electric bill was due to lighting. After establishing the school’s baseline energy use, they asked administrators, teachers and staff to make simple changes to reduce electricity use. This included turning off unnecessary lights, including those in unoccupied classrooms, and opening blinds to take advantage of natural light. After tracking energy use for the next year, they discovered they were able to decrease energy use by 190,000 kilowatt-hours and save $11,000 on their electric bill.

To tie the energy audits to climate change and other classroom curricula, Petri asked students to research how power is produced.

They discovered that over 50 percent of Pennsylvania’s power comes from coal-fired electric plants. Petri used the data to illustrate to her students how the burning of coal releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and how using electricity from these plants contributes to our carbon footprints. By allowing students to take leadership on the lighting project, they become actively engaged in reducing the school’s carbon footprint.

Building on the success of the first year, the school continues to practice energy and money-saving strategies and students look for other ways to take action. Their work culminated in winning a $113,000 EPA grant to install solar panels on the roof of the school last year. Petri also leads a voluntary afterschool program called Green Team that continues to lead the energy initiative. For their newest venture, the Conservation Through Education (CTE) Project, students travel to neighboring schools to teach younger students how to conduct energy audits and implement energy saving practices.

For more information about the Collegiate Academy Green Team go to www.collegiateacademy.com; click on student life, clubs and organizations, Green Team. The Web site is newly constructed and will be updated on a regular basis.