How a Student can Guide a School's Effort to Address Sustainability and Energy Efficiency

Carson Didden, a student at the Oak Knoll School of the Holy Child in Summit, NJ, has embarked on the task of determining the carbon footprint of the school. She is doing this with the full support of the school administration.

The intention of this talk is to discuss the process and benefits of dissecting a school, workplace, or community's energy usage. There are several ways that this research can not only benefit the community it is being done in, but also the greater world, which currently suffers from a major climate change problem.

After attending a summer program called The Island School, where she took a course entitled Sustainable Systems and dissected that school community’s energy efficiency, Carson Didden, now entering her senior year in high school, began to work with a science teacher, Jeffery Yuhas, and several administrators to complete a similar study on her school’s energy usage.

Carson Didden met with the head of school, head of upper school, CFO, and other faculty to begin to gather data on the way the school handles their electricity, gas, and water. She compiled data sheets to calculate totals of each energy measurement for the school in the 2021-2022 school year as an estimate of the total energy used every school year. She then surveyed the school community about their individual energy usage regarding transportation to and from school. The end goal of this project is to identify the excessive aspects of the school’s energy usage and begin to cut back.

Educators, employers, and others would benefit from understanding how to conduct this research in their own communities. The process to collect the data itself takes time as well as the actual removal of the excess energy. However, the pros outweigh the cons in the overall scheme of things. This type of project improves the health of the environment and can also reduce spending by eliminating the unnecessary resources funded by the school.