New Roads School Takes First Place In California’s 2011 Green Cup Challenge

By Dupé Aleru|The Beverly Hills Courier|March 11, 2011

New Roads School took first place in California and was in the top-tier nationwide in the 2011 Green Cup Challenge—an interschool energy conservation competition hosted by the Green Schools Alliance.

The Green Cup Challenge takes place every year in the months of Jan. and Feb. in order to call attention to the peak months of energy use (winter) and to provide students with hands-on opportunities to help measure and reduce electricity consumption on their respective campuses.

“During a 4-week period that began Jan. 14, New Roads High School students implemented a variety of electricity-saving measures campus-wide, and took weekly readings of school electric meters, comparing the usage to a baseline derived from previous years’ consumption. Students posted signs next to the light switches in each classroom and office on the high school campus, reminding people to turn off the lights, and posted similar messages on computer monitors. Our digital (computer lab) classroom was modified to admit more natural light and students raised overall awareness by speaking at weekly Town Hall meetings,” said Communications Director Nancy London of New Roads School.

According to the Green Cup Challenge website, the participating schools in this year’s competition reduced electric consumption by an average of 4.5 percent, effectively cutting 1,036,816 kWh from collective electric bills and 1,396,038 lbs of CO2 from power plants providing electricity.

New Roads’ plans for next year include challenging their schools families to make similarly impressive reductions at home.