Interview: RHS Environmental Club Saving School Thousands the Easy Way

It's probably fair to say that more than any generation in recent memory, today's youth are highly interested and active in environmental causes and sustainability.

We took the time to schedule an interview with Victoria Pan, a junior at Ridgewood High School and the co-president of Students for Environmental Action (SEA), an RHS club.

Pan said she's chiefly concerned with energy consumption and it's inspired her to initiate the Turn Off the Lights (TOTL) project, a simple but effective program that may ripple over to other schools throughout the state and country.

Patch: So what exactly is Turn Off the Lights?

Victoria Pan: Turn Off the Lights is a project in which our club turns off all the classroom lights at the end of the week. Every Friday afterschool, we basically “raid” the school, turning off all the light switches in the classrooms.

We measure our progress by keeping track of all the lights in our school and using charts to monitor their on/off status. At the end of each raid, I compile the results from the students. We continuously examine the monthly electricity bills every few months or so to check for reductions in energy costs. I’ve been consistently running this project every week for more than a year, and so far, it has saved the school thousands of dollars in electricity costs!

Not only do our efforts save money on the school's electricity bill, but we raise a ton of awareness in the student body.

Patch: How did it get started?

VP: During the beginning of my high school career, I made one promise to myself: to do whatever it takes to help my world consume less energy. I wanted to make it a goal of mine to inform others in my community of the many problems our environment faces today, about carbon emissions and our dependence on fossil fuels.

With a strong passion to help the environment, I joined the Students for Environmental Action club and have stay actively involved. I knew right away that I wanted to launch a project that would achieve this goal. 

Patch: What were some of the first goals?

VP: The first thing that came to mind was a problem my school constantly faced: excessive light use.  Every day I noticed that the classroom lights were always kept on, even after school hours when the rooms were unoccupied! I did some research and found out that they were kept on for four more extra hours each day than necessary. Furthermore, the biggest source of energy in schools is the lighting, which accounts for 30% of the school’s overall energy use.

Patch: Did that surprise you?

VP: I was shocked, I knew something had to be done. As a result, I established the Turn Off the Lights project. That was almost two years ago, and now, we have been running continuously ever since!

Patch: So what did the club do to meet those goals?

VP: After conveying the basic outlines of the project to the SEA club, we brought our ideas to the principal [Jack Lorenz] in the form of a proposal to get his input and approval.

Then I organized a group of members from the club, both old and new, who were interested in taking part of this project. To lay the foundation, we mapped out the school and allocated a number to each corridor, printing them out onto little charts.  After that, we were ready to get started—it was that simple.

Patch: How has the TOTL project influenced the community?

VP: We took this project one step further by educating our community about our efforts. As a club, we organized ways we could raise awareness and teach others about the significance of sustainability. We were able to utilize many resources in order to convey our message.

Last November, we achieved one step of education by visiting Willard Elementary School, where we taught the whole third grade class (around 60 students) about our changing world and the importance of sustainability

In our own school, we spread awareness through posters, guest speakers and TOTL reminder labels that are placed above all the light switches in the building. 

Patch: Is this just a Ridgewood thing?

VP: No, not at all. We brought this project beyond the borders of our community to other schools as well. There is even a school in New York that we’re working with to help launch their own TOTL project!

Patch: How has this project influenced you?

VP: You know, I have always been told that spending those extra ten seconds to go back and turn off the lights in the room wouldn’t make a difference. Yet, using ten seconds of my energy is nowhere near the four hours of energy that would be consumed if no one did anything about it. I believe that my efforts allowed me to view the world in a completely different way.

I’ve always grown up with the notion that only the biggest efforts will make the biggest difference. Now I know that’s not true. The simple idea of turning off the lights has taught me to challenge this belief. I learned that in order to push for change, you have to start small. It’s overlooking the big picture and striving for the little goals that will have a lasting effect.

Patch: What do you see for the project in the future?

VP: In the future, we plan to continue our efforts of turning off the lights every Friday.  Our vision is to make our school more sustainable—and that means enforcing such practices to protect our resources for the future. This means going beyond solely the acts of turning off the lights. While we will continue to do it every week, we hope to explore even more ways to help our school become energy-efficient. After the installation of a motion-sensored lighting system, we will seek improvements like florescent light bulbs, solar panels, and smart meters.

Patch: How do you plan to keep this initiative going; plans for expansion?

VP: Each project we complete will immediately be followed by a new one so that we never stray from our path toward sustainability. We also hope to influence other schools to follow the model we have set and inspire students like us to realize that sometimes it’s the simplest projects that can have the loudest impact.