However, there do seem to be sustainability myths permeating throughout the knowledge of our student population that I hope to address in my personal project. Two of these myths that I have heard repeated over the last weeks include the rumor that Environmental Services staff does not actually recycle anything that is placed in the recycling bins and that the energy challenge is biased toward newer buildings or buildings with no increased energy usage based on external factors like weather. In order to address these concerns and generally increase the idea of sustainability in Teter Residence Center, myself and a handful of willing residents have developed programming for the Center.
We have three programs we would like to host in the upcoming months with a correlating pre- and post-survey of student's attitudes toward sustainability:
1. Energy Challenge Movie Night
The residents working on this project with me made it clear that they wanted to bring back this popular Energy Challenge program from years past. They would like to encourage residents to turn off the lights in their rooms on one evening in order to project a movie (seasonally appropriate Hocus Pocus) onto the side of the building. They would like to address the crowd before the movie about the significant impact turning off their lights when not in use can make. Lighting contributes to over 40% of our total energy usage in the residence halls so turning the lights out can make a HUGE impact if done consistently. We will also generally discuss the energy challenge at this event and dispel the rumor that newer buildings or buildings without air conditioning have an advantage (Teter won a few years back; those other buildings couldn't have had an advantage!)
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| Hocus Pocus was chosen as the movie because of the time of season and because it is wildly popular amongst Teter Quad residents. |
2. Recycling Race
The residents want to set up a recycling race in the lobby of our residence center to allow students the opportunity to compete against one another in sorting a pile of waste into recyclable and unrecyclable materials. We decided it would be beneficial to have them use the actual bins they would use in the residence center or dining center for the race to familiarize them with the process. We will also use the take-out containers and common items purchased from dining centers as part of the waste piles as that is the majority of recyclable waste we tend to see from residents. Finally, we will address the myth of Environmental Services not recycling items that are placed in recycling bins.
3. Ugly Sweater Competition
We're considering doing an ugly sweater competition as the weather turns colder to promote residents layering clothing instead of turning the heat up in their rooms. We like this idea because it is low key and fun but also educational and something that is not always considered when you think about sustainable lifestyles.
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| Flyers for the event should be eye-catching and enticing for students to get them to the event. We hope to use pictures like this one to get students interested in the event. |
For the latter two competitions, we will have incentives in the form of prizes, hopefully from local vendors who utilize sustainable practices in their operations. Additionally, because all three events are public and highly visible for the whole community to see, we hope that the participation of these students will spur them to continue their sustainable practices upon completion of the activity. We are additionally considering having a sign-up at the recycling race for students to sign if they want to commit to thinking about recycling when throwing away their waste.
To measure whether these activities have impact on students and their values and knowledge around sustainability, we will be administering a pre-survey and post-survey for all students in Teter. Here are the questions we would like to know:
1. What year are you in school?
2. What floor do you live on in Teter (please include building and floor)?
Using a scale of 1-5, 1 being not at all important to you and 5 being very important to you, please rank the following:
- Recycling
- Water conservation
- Electricity conservation
- General reduction in use of nonrenewable resources
- Sustainability
- Recycling in your residence hall
- Recycling in the dining halls
- How to monitor your water use in the residence halls
- How to monitor your electricity use in the residence halls
- How to monitor your use of nonrenewable resources
- Resources on campus specifically pertaining to sustainability
To incentivize students to take this survey, we are also offering small prizes (most likely gift cards) to maximize response. The survey will be set up via survey monkey and administered via the floor RA's in an email. Overall, based on previous experience RA's receive pretty solid response from floor-wide emails (approximately 60% response or 28 students per floor). The survey will be administered again at the end of the semester to gauge whether students were affected by the sustainability programs hosted in Teter. We will add questions specifically about the programs we host to gauge how the programs affected sustainability values if at all.
An update will come shortly after our first program, the movie night, at the end of October.
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