Dayton Area STEM and Energy Savings Accomplishments!

DES receives energy saving information prior to school closures.

This year at Dayton Elementary School (DES), Karon Dutcher and Tammy Borremans joined a group called Project Recharge by Envirolutions.  Dusti Houk at Dayton Intermediate School (DIS)also uses this curriculum in her classroom.  The DES duo went through training over the summer and received about $2000 worth of resources to do the lesson plans with their 5th grade students this year.  DES is the first elementary school that has been involved in Project Recharge. The students were able to learn about electricity and other forms of energy - how they're used and their energy efficiency. The goal was for the students to work in groups to develop proposals or Public Service Announcments (PSA) about how to save energy in their homes, schools, communities, etc.  Due to the school closures, the students were unable to complete the proposals in the classrooms; however, several of the students wanted to do the proposals anyway. There were seven students from Ms. Borremans' class that completed a proposal to change the lighting at Dayton Elementary School from fluorescent to LED lights - an initiative similar to the study in place at DIS. DES had speakers from NV Energy Smart School Program in our classroom prior to the closure and the students received information about the number of lights that would need to be changed. They researched the costs of the change, what the current energy usage and costs are with florescent lighting and what the energy and cost savings would be with LED lights. They put all of their information together by emailing each other. The information was put together on a Powerpoint and presented during the ZOOM year-end event. The DES project got an award for Youngest Energy Detectives!

Deja Abernathy changes her home's light bulbs from incandescent to LED.

In addition, Deja Abernathy, a fifth grade student at DES, also worked on a home project.  After students complete the units of study that Project Recharge provides, the students are asked to take on some type of school or home energy savings project. Due to the school closure, Mrs. Dutcher was not able to fulfill all the units of study, but the students were introduced to the lighting section involving different types of light. Mrs. Dutcher had asked a couple of students if they would be interested in doing a home energy savings project and both Deja and a classmate were willing to work on a project.  Deja completed an investigation of energy usage around her house and came up with a few things that could be changed. She realized all the lights in her house were incandescent and she decided to do her project on changing the bulbs to LED lights.  This involved counting all the lights inside the house and determining the amount of time the lights are on in the different areas of the house. Using this information, Deja worked with Mrs. Dutcher on a spreadsheet to determine the difference of kWh usage between the different light types and what the cost savings would be. She had to do research, which involved her family's NV Energy Dashboard and pros and cons of the different light systems. Project Recharge provided the worksheets necessary to guide the students. Then Deja had to learn how to transfer the information onto a slide show using Google Slides. After review of her proposal, Project Recharge determined that Deja's project would be funded and she would get the necessary bulbs for her home to convert to LED light systems.

Last but not least in the Dayton string of success, Dayton Intermediate Robotics Team (D.I.R.T.) had been working on a research topic for their event with First LEGO League and the competition.  The team continued to work on the research project even after being previously eliminated from the LEGO competition.  The team became energy detectives and looked over the DIS electric bills. They realized that the lights being used and the length of time they were on was causing the energy bill to be unnecessarily high. They walked the school to count the incandescent bulbs and plugged the information into a spreadsheet. Once the info was plugged into the spreadsheet, they realized changing the building to LED lighting would help save about $10,000 annually for DIS and also save 153,000 lbs of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere. NV Energy also gives a rebate for better lighting, which would be about $3000 - $5000. Superintendent Wayne Workman agreed to give this money back to Envirolutions to fund other projects if the DIS conversion to LED lighting was funded.

The DIS proposal was submitted to Envirolutions, the nonprofit organization that helps Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) teachers implement a curriculum in their classroom, called Project Recharge. Envirolutions chose to fund the DIS proposal and the school will be receiving LED lights throughout the school. With the NV Energy rebate from this project, and Mr. Workman signing it back to Envirolutions, they will also be able to fund the projects at DES.

Congratulations to all of the STEM accomplishments and energy savings projects that received recognition and funding in the Dayton area!