Community Services Consortium

Serving Linn, Benton, and Lincoln counties in Oregon. Helping people. Changing lives.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

CSC's Energy Smarts Team Helps Save Energy at School and Home

Last year CSC received a grant from NW Natural Gas to help develop an energy based curriculum for elementary students in a local school. Stephanie Bugni, CSC Energy Education Coordinator, developed a pilot program called the Energy Smarts Team and found a 4th grade classroom at Waverly Elementary School in Albany who was willing to try it out.

For the past 3 months the Energy Smarts Team program has been in place. The class spent the first few weeks learning about energy sources, the difference between renewable and nonrenewable energy sources, how energy is produced and transmitted, and the importance of energy conservation.

After this training, the Energy Smarts Team patrolled their school looking for smart energy use. They spread the word about energy savings by leaving reminder tickets in places they found energy being wasted and thank you tickets where energy was used wisely. After 3 weeks of school patrol, they went home with an assignment to perform their own home energy audit.

The class was rewarded for their hard work with a field trip to Oregon State University. They visited the wave research lab, the new Energy Center and received a tour of the campus.

“The whole class worked hard to learn about energy and teach others in their school and home about positive energy use, but the best part was they had fun while doing it,” says Stephanie Bugni. “The program was so successful that next year, all 4th and 5th grade classes at Waverly will be using the Energy Smarts Team program.”

Welcome to CSC's blog and e-newsletter!

These communications tools can be used to make announcements, acknowledge donors and volunteers, post videos and slideshows–whatever we want to share with our online community.

There are 3 ways to deliver info to stakeholders:

  1. The blog itself, which can be linked to our current website
  2. Email news blasts (blog articles sent via email as eNewsletters)
  3. RSS Feed (subscribers read in Google Reader or other feed reader, can also send posts to Facebook and Twitter)
We're excited about these communication tools and look forward to both your input and feedback for continuing improvement and positive information-sharing.

If you have agency/program information you'd like posted on this blog, please send full text and/or photos and videos, ideas, or suggestions to Janet Hessel and she will take the next steps.

Enjoy!