"Our overall energy consumption has decreased substantially. In the past three years, between our facilities retrofits, competitions and student engagement, we've reduced total electricity consumption 13% while increasing the conditioned space."
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Deerfield Academy Seeks to Foster a Sustainability Culture for Next Generation Leaders
Innovation through Campus Engagement with Energy
Among its many accolades Deerfield Academy, the 4-year college preparatory boarding school in Deerfield, Massachusetts, is being recognized for its commitment to training the next generation of leaders as environmental stewards.
Sustainability is such a high priority that it has been incorporated into the Academy's strategic plan and adopted by the Trustees. The recently completed Koch Science Center demonstrates this commitment. Completed in 2009, the Koch Center became Deerfield's first LEED certified building, receiving the LEED Gold rating. As efforts to green the campus have continued, the primary focus has been on reducing energy consumed in buildings and engaging students in meaningful ways with the work of campus sustainability.
One method they have found for pursuing their goals is measuring and visualizing electricity consumption using Lucid's Building Dashboard software.
How It Works
Building Dashboard monitors and displays resource use information by accessing building performance data through Deerfield's building automation system. This allows the Dashboard to collect real-time data from a variety of monitored sources and display it in a user-friendly and educational web-based interface.
A Dashboard for Multiple Audiences
"For us, sustainability is a multi-front war. It requires change on so many levels, but at the most basic we have to change our community's relationship with the environment in a way that motivates them to change their behavior," said Kristan Bakker, Deerfield Sustainability Coordinator.
At Deerfield this change has taken many forms, with different constituencies contributing to the collective goal. For facilities staff the Dashboard is used extensively, especially for monitoring and verifying that the Koch Center meets its high performance standards. As other building retrofits are made the Dashboard is being used to review the performance and to evaluate the effectiveness of different efficiency programs.
"Students, faculty, administrators -- all of these groups are working in new ways. Our physical plant is thinking more on a conservation basis. Administrators are sending me notes of support during the Green Cup Challenge. The presence of the Dashboard is the visual representation of our commitment, reminding all of us about our environmental goals."
Culture Shift through Competition
For a school like Deerfield, though, it all comes back to the education of their students.
For the past three years Deerfield has hosted a Green Cup Challenge, a month-long electricity reduction competition. During these competitions students do everything they can to reduce energy use in their residence halls. The reductions equate to substantial savings: during the 2010 Green Cup students reduced by more than 10,000 kilowatt-hours, saving $1,500 in electricity over the month.
These competitions have become an important tradition for the students, who vie to reduce more than their peers in neighboring buildings. The competition has also increased dialogue with teachers on campus who are now fielding students' questions about what they can do in their dorms to conserve, "which is exactly the kind of conversations we are hoping to foster," says Bakker.
Through the competition, Ms. Bakker has seen more than just lights turning off. "We've seen a change in the choices students make. They are actively changing out lighting and choosing more efficient appliances to bring to campus." This year they are expecting to have an even more successful challenge. "This year the students in the winning dorms will get a fast pass in the dining hall. Everyone loves food."
"The Green Cup Challenge and our unplug campaigns reinforce the fact that sustainability is what we do at Deerfield and it spills over into all aspects of our community."
In the spring of 2011, as part of the nationwide Green Cup Challenge, Deerfield participated in a head-to-head competition with Phillips Academy Andover. Both campuses utilized their Dashboards for intra-school competition and comparisons. The inter-school competition was a big success, engaging even more students by strengthening the school rivalry. Over the 6-week competition Deerfield reduced electricity 8% across 16 buildings being monitored in real time, saving over $1,000 and averting 10,000 pounds of carbon dioxide.
Real-Time Data Becomes a Powerful Teaching Platform
"The Dashboard allows us to have the students interact at a fundamental level with their own information. They can watch graphically what is happening in their own spaces. When clouds go over head they can see the photovoltaic array production drop. This creates a very real, meaningful experience for them in a way that teaching out of the book doesn't."
As successful as the competitions are, perhaps the most important place for student engagement has been the classroom. Deerfield faculty have found creative ways to integrate resource use data into the classroom, familiarizing students with graphs of resource use data while setting the expectation that energy is something worth paying attention to.
"In our 9th grade curriculum, students leave the class comfortable with numbers and data. The ability to interpret graphical data is one of the primary goals for a high school science program. People need to know how to interpret and create visual representations of information," says Physics Faculty Rich Calhoun.
"The Dashboard allows us to have the students interact at a fundamental level with their own information. They can watch graphically what is happening in their own spaces. When clouds go over head they can see the photovoltaic array production drop. This creates a very real, meaningful experience for them in a way that teaching out of the book doesn't."
"Normally, graphing, math or physics can seem like just a classroom exercise, something they leave at the door. When the data they are analyzing happens in the building they live, the work they do during class keeps them connected after. They are certainly thinking about their electricity use more than Newton's Second Law. They just aren't connected to those theoretical problems the way they are to their own energy use."
By using the Dashboard in the classroom faculty have seen students come up with a number of innovative research projects. "My favorite research question came from two students that struggled in science. They asked the simple question, 'did the Green Cup Challenge change our behavior?' It's a great question. We have these competitions, and we need to understand how they impact us over time."
"Even if their analysis didn't stand up to a statistical test, it was a powerful project because it came from two kids that struggled to understand the differences between kilowatts and kilowatt-hours, but when they were forced to sit down and do the analysis, by the end they understood units of energy," said Calhoun.
The Future of Education
From facilities projects to curriculum, Deerfield is on the leading edge of a transformation in schools. Ms. Bakker sees their work with the Dashboard as just the beginning. "Our buildings, our policies, our operations, these are all teaching tools. We strive to practice what we preach, and in doing so instill in our students the importance of sustainability and the belief that their actions matter."
Read more about Deerfield Academy's sustainability initiatives: http://www.deerfield.edu
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Deerfield Academy Seeks to Foster a Sustainability Culture for Next Generation Leaders
