Ella Power and Sun Puppies, from The Power Family series of books.

Mount Energy Elementary, Creedmoor, NC: “We plan to conserve energy by turning off lights every time we leave a room, and by turning off hall lights during days that are well lit by natural sunlight.”

Neillsville Elementary, Neillsville, WI: “We plan to use powerstrips to turn off daily used items (Smartboards, lamps, etc), and motion detectors in our big areas to control lights and ventilation.”

Mary Rieke Elementary, Portland, OR: “We plan to create signs to encourage people to turn off lights and computers and to help us create a school culture to save energy. We also plan to take light level readings in each classroom and then remove excess light bulbs.”

Olathe Public Schools, Olathe, KS: ”We have begun upgrading lighting fixtures at two schools.  We are replacing metal halide lights in gyms with T5 florscents and replaced light fixtures with electronic ballasts and T8 bulbs.  We just installed LED light fixtures as part of some pilot projects and if the small pilot goes well the next step will be to do a whole school in LEDs so we can get an accurate reading of the energy savings.”

Coral Grove Elementary, Marimar, FL: ”We plan on conserving energy by shutting lights off when not in use, closing doors,turning regrigerator thermometers down, and practicing reduce, reuse and recycle.”

Nova Eisenhower Elementary, Davie, FL: ”We have teachers assign students jobs such as turning off the lights when they exit the classroom and making sure water sources are turned off completely when not in use. We also try to conserve water on our campus by landscaping with native plants that use less water.”

“During our STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) class, students are studying various forms of energy and how they affect individuals and the environment. We are working on a project with the town water department to teacher water uses and conservation and another project with an engineer focusing on submersibles using buoyancy instead of fossil fuels to conduct research.”

Want to learn more about the Power Families series? Visit  author Susan Seville’s website!