Turn Off the Friday Night Lights!

00:03… 00:02… 00:01… the numbers on the scoreboard tick down… Newman has won the football game! Students storm onto the field while a number of other crowd members stand up and applaud. It’s a clear and cool night and the buildings in the background illuminate the turf as students celebrate. But why is it that the buildings light up behind the field? Isn’t that the job of the lights lining the field? Green Club wants to know the answer and if they don’t receive a good one, they will turn off the lights. Among brief discussions of beginning composting and reinforcing recycling, the Green Club spent a large amount of their most recent meeting coming up with a solution for the electricity Newman wastes. Many students have noticed that the lights in classrooms, hallways, and bathrooms seem to be left on excessively. By using the information given by solar panels on top of the science building, the Green Club will track how much electricity the building uses each day and use that information to figure out approximately how much electricity other buildings on campus use. After presenting this information, the Green Club will introduce the idea of motion detectors throughout the school. The motion detectors will be linked to the lights, causing lights to turn on when a door is opened. This is a big project, but the Green Club has a plan to start small. The motion detectors will start off by being in bathrooms, seeing as those are the areas that spend the most time empty. As soon as the door to a bathroom opens, the motion detector will kick in and turn on the lights. There will never be a dark bathroom while people are present, but electricity will be saved. The Green Club hopes to be successful with this new idea and hopefully spread it throughout the entire school.