Education

This series highlights the most important people involved with the Alliance to Save Energy’s Green Campus Program—our interns! The program currently employs more than 75 university and college students across California who implement energy efficiency projects at their campuses. See the entire In Their Words series.

In Bogdan's Words

From Dec. 8 – 10 at the Pasadena Convention Center in California, hundreds of leaders in environmental education came together for the Green California Schools Summit and Expo, appropriately themed, “Green Schools: More Important than Ever.”

While  students across the United States were enjoying their winter breaks, participants in the Alliance’s Green Schools Program were saving their schools from being energy “Grinches” by completely shutting down their empty buildings. According to results from the Alliance’s Green Schools Program, schools that fully prepare their buildings for their winter breaks waste significantly less electricity – and are rewarded with smaller electricity bills than schools that only shut down the most visible energy-consuming systems.

At a time of unprecedented budget cuts and teacher layoffs in California, the Alliance's California Green Schools Program has been saving school districts a significant amount of money on their energy bills by training students to make their schools more energy efficient.

The nation’s first – and  largest – electricity and water use reduction competition on college campuses saved more than 500,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity and thousands of dollars in energy costs.

The 40 colleges and universities that participated in the "Campus Conservation Nationals 2010" reduced electricity consumption by so much that they saved $50,209 and avoided putting 816,394 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.