By Ben Nunnery
February may be the month to shorten showers, unplug computers and towel-dry hair, at least for students participating in a campus-wide power-reduction competition. Save Power and Receive Cash is an annual competition between residence halls organized by Dartmouth's Environmental Conservation Organization. This year, the prize for the most energy-saving residence hall is a free Nalgene water bottle for each resident.
Dominic Winski '09, the coordinator of ECO, is organizing SPARC this year. He said that the goal of the competition is not only to save energy this month but also to raise awareness of environmental issues in general.
"Awareness is our main goal," he said. "We hope that students will develop energy-efficient habits this month that will continue throughout the year."
Some students, however, still seem unaware of the competition. Megan Vucovich '07 said that she has never heard of SPARC or an energy-saving competition. Philip Rehayem '08, an Undergraduate Advisor in the Little Residence Hall, has heard about the competition but acknowledged that the majority of students have not.
"I only know about SPARC because I read random fliers," he said. "I think to increase awareness, SPARC should get [residence hall] representatives to be a central source for information."
McLaughlin Cluster UGA Tanvir Kabir '08, who participated in the competition as a freshman, suggested ways that SPARC could improve interest this year.
"Every building should get a report on how much energy they saved," he said.
Many UGAs were only somewhat aware of the competition and said that this was the main reason they were not encouraging their residents to participate. New Hampshire Residence Hall UGA Jenny Ratner '08 said she was vaguely aware of the competition but had to research it to be sure.
"I think they need more publicity," she said. "If a representative would have come to one of our weekly UGA meetings and informed us about it, I definitely would have encouraged my residents to participate. We are all extremely busy and cannot go out of our way to figure out the logistics," Ratner said.
The energy consumption of each residence hall this month will be compared to the residence building's consumption in November and January to determine the winner of the competition. Winski said the competition is designed to give all residence halls an equal chance of winning because they are being ranked against themselves, not other physical plants.
"We want to see if there is an effort or if they are just doing what they have always done," he said. "We will calculate the trend for each dorm and compare them."
Last year, overall energy consumption decreased, but Winski also pointed out that because last year's winter was so mild, it's hard to determine the effect SPARC had.
To promote the competition, ECO sent out campus-wide e-mails and hung posters around campus. Winski says that the best way to promote the competition is word of mouth and positive peer pressure.
