Envirolution, a local educational nonprofit, is working with Helix Electric to complete a lighting retrofit at Dayton Elementary School for a student-led sustainability project as part of Project ReCharge.
Envirolution’s Project ReCharge is a hands-on, project-based STEAM curriculum and training program dedicated to educating and preparing students to become future STEAM leaders and workers with a focus on sustainability.
This year-long program provides teachers with the classroom resources and training to equip their students with the knowledge, skills, community connections, and confidence needed to become sustainability detectives and inspire them to pursue careers in STEAM and clean energy sectors.
At the end of the program, students create sustainability projects to help make a portion of their community more sustainable and energy efficient, whether it’s their school, home or a public building.
Envirolution then helps to locate funding and implement select projects from each school year. On June 6, Envirolution and Helix Electric will be replacing all of Dayton Elementary School’s fluorescent bulbs with LED bulbs as part of a student-led project submitted by a group of its 5th Grade students.
As part of the 2021 school year, Ms. Borremans’ 5th grade class at Dayton Elementary created a Project ReCharge sustainability project to switch all of the existing fluorescent bulbs at their school with LED bulbs.
The team of students completed an audit of the school’s lights and calculated that by changing to LED’s, Dayton Intermediate could save $8,393 annually on electricity bills.
In addition, Dayton Elementary could save 45.8 Metric Tons of CO2e from being released into the atmosphere and save 64,562.40 kWh from being used each year.
“These sustainability projects give students the chance to see that their work can create real change in their communities. If we can help inspire kids to go into STEAM careers and make the world a better place in the process, I’m all for that!,” said Tallon Cargill, Service Operations Manager for Helix Electric.
Project ReCharge has been turning student ideas into reality since 2014.
To date, 20 student projects have been implemented, saving over $1.29 Million in energy costs, reducing enough energy to power 930 homes, and cutting CO2 emissions by 7,383 metric tons, equivalent to removing 1,591 cars from the road.
