Westminster Participates in Green Cup Challenge

Westminster School is participating in the 2010 Green Cup Challenge, an energy-conservation competition among 150 day and boarding schools and public and private schools in more than 24 states and in Canada.

The month-long challenge is designed to educate campus communities about sustainability and to reduce ecological emissions of greenhouse gases. It also supports recycling and water conservation. This is Westminster’s second year participating in the student-driven, interschool energy challenge.

For five Fridays in a row beginning Jan. 22, students and faculty from Westminster’s EcoTeam will read electrical meters on campus buildings and faculty homes and submit the readings to the Challenge’s coordinators. Baseline numbers from which to measure progress are established as part of the competition.

The Westminster meter readers include Whitney Powel ’11, Caroline Brady ’12, Adam Susaneck ’10, Dillon Tiner ’12, faculty member Peter Doucette, Karin Yoshida ’10, Ronald Yeung ’13, Tiffany Liu ’10, Xavier Fowler ’10, Grace Brown ’12, Tammie Moopen ’10 and Sara Nolan ’10.

“The Green Cup Challenge is an excellent way to raise awareness about the threat of climate change,” said Adam Susaneck ’10, a leader of the EcoTeam. “But more than that, the Challenge is also a powerful method for people to get involved. It allows students and faculty to directly participate in a concerted effort to conserve energy and to see the concrete results of their actions. By the end, many people will realize that these little things that the EcoTeam is so well known for pestering people about — turning off lights, turning down the heat, putting computers to sleep, etc. — can actually have quite a significant impact.”

In order to maximize participation in the Challenge, the EcoTeam produced and showed an educational video to faculty and students at a recent assembly.