Charged-Up Pupils Save School Money, Win National Award

A teacher at Linda Vista Elementary School found a little purple note on her desk a couple of months ago. “You forgot to turn off the portable heater under the desk,” it read.

Now, the accumulated effect of many similar notes and a host of other actions by the “student energy patrol” has resulted in the school’s electric and gas bill dropping hundreds of dollars below that of last year.

The energy that students of Room 29 at Linda Vista Elementary School put into studying about energy and teaching the community as well has paid off with a national award earned in competition with hundreds of primary and secondary schools around the country.

And, unlike many projects that schools agree to undertake, the yearlong energy awareness effort required that the 20 fifth- and sixth-graders in Ted Cochrane’s class challenge themselves in all subjects across the curriculum--writing, public speaking, science and art--and not just one or two areas.

“They were fantastic,” Sheila Coyle, assistant manager of the Linda Vista McDonald’s Restaurant, said of the students who papered the neighborhood with their posters and news bulletins filled with tips about how to save energy.

“People came into the restaurant after the (newsletters) had been taken down and asked where they were,” Coyle said.

Students My Ly and Robert Murphy will join Cochrane in traveling to Washington next week to accept for the class the National Excellence in Energy Education award from the Department of Energy, the culmination of a yearlong contest among schools nationwide for the best energy program.

Earlier this spring, Cochrane’s class won the state’s Grand Prize for Excellence in Energy Education. The project was recommended by Shirley Hardy, county education office coordinator for all school energy programs.

“I give all the credit to the kids,” said Cochrane, a retired Marine whose gruff demeanor only partially masks the tremendous pride he takes with his children.

Students worked not only on posters and newsletters and patrolled for conservation, but turned the story of Chicken Little into an energy play and presented it both at school and at the Reuben E. Fleet Space Theater and Science Center. They also planned and ran an energy carnival for children.

A big hit at the carnival was a photocell that turns on by itself when it senses a lack of light, Jimmy Nguyen said in relating the new science that he learned.

Chanthakhan Rassavong said writing the play and memorizing the lines, let alone having to perform it before other students, was difficult at first. Rassavong played Chicken Little, who instead of screaming, “The sky is falling!” goes around warning, “The sky is warming! The sky is warming!” because of too many coal- and oil-fueled power plants despoiling the atmosphere and leading to a build-up of carbon dioxide.

Nou Vang helped write some of the new lines, such as the rap line, “Old McDonald bought the farm, with an IOU; It’s power plant that belches smoke, makes us say PU.”

“Things like the play really taught us how to be leaders, and how to express ourselves,” said My Ly, important since English is a second language for her and most of her classmates.

Juan Verdin was among several students in charge of designing and making the papier-mache costumes for the play, using recycled products as much as possible.

Other students learned that they and their family could save at home.

Shen Ling said he no longer “uses hair spray out of a can” because of the chlorofluorocarbons that provide the aerosol to propel the spray and lead to ozone depletion in the Earth’s atmosphere.

“Instead, I use gel now,” Ling said.

“We turn off the faucets now at home,” Raymond Mendoza said. Several students now take shorter showers or even forsake them for baths, which use less water and electricity for heating the water.

Tou Vang won the poster content for his whimsical poster of several children together in a partly filled bath as a way to save.

“But I’ve never tried it myself!” he protested good-naturedly.