Kill-A-Watt

Kill-A-Watt

Kill-A-Watt: A Campaign to Increase Energy Efficiency on the Columbia University Campus

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

students = sloths?

I think I am probably an average college student in terms of energy use. Even though I am aware of wasting energy, and am indeed working on this project to increase energy efficiency and reduce our energy use on campus, I don't think that my own energy habits are particularly efficient. Sure, I'll turn off the lights in my suite's kitchen/bathroom/hallway at night if I remember to do so, but if I go to sleep before 2am I can usually justify my own lethargy by telling myself that surely someone else is still awake and will turn off the lights when THEY go to bed. I'm not proud of it, but my personal energy habits aren't exactly worthy of imitation - though they are exemplary in the sense that I think they represent those of a typical good-intentioned, yet perpetually exhausted and therefore slothful college student.

Anyway, the point of that is that I would like to see if my hypothesis about college student energy use is correct - am I in fact average? Do my energy habits pretty much align with those of my fellow students? Finding out what is going on is an important, no, ESSENTIAL part of our energy project. I am currently typing up an energy questionnaire, with multiple choice questions such as:

Scenario 2: You're rushing out of your dorm room, already going to be a few minutes late to class. As you lock your door, you feel a pang of guilt - you've left every light and the tv on in your room. Do you:
a) rush back inside, frantically turning off the lights and tv.
b) suppress the pang of guilt, telling yourself you'll be back soon and will definitely remember to turn the lights off next time you go to class.
c) pang of guilt? what are you talking about?

The questionnaire will hopefully give us a sense of the energy habits of students at Barnard (and maybe some CC students? to have something to compare us with?) - especially how long they are gone during the day at class on average, whether or not they turn off their lights, etc. I'm very excited about the findings, even though I suspect I can already predict them based on my own energy habits.

The question now is how to get a good sampling? Again, I am your typical vaguely-apathetic self-centered college student, so I know that many people when approached with a non-mandatory questionnaire will wave it away ("sorry, I have so much work to do"). Will the people who take the time to respond to an energy-use questionnaire also be the ones who have more conscientious energy habits? I don't know, maybe I am reading too much into energy habits - maybe they aren't a reflection of someone's general attitude (i.e. lazy across the board or just selectively lazy? is it even fair to call it lazy at all?). I'm just afraid that the people who don't take the time to answer a random person's questionnaire (especially if they themselves are uninterested in the topic of energy efficiency) are also the people who don't take the time to turn off their lights when they leave the room....meaning that the responses to the questionnaire will paint a much brighter 'energy habits picture' of our college than the 'grim reality'. Does that make sense?

Anyway, any suggestions about where to distribute + collect the questionnaires to maximize the number and diversity of responses would be very helpful. Maybe handing out the questionnaires + those mini golf pencils during lunch in Hewitt/Mac and then collecting them again right then?

...I'm very excited about the glorious pie charts and graphs that I'll be able to make once I get some student body energy use statistics.

-Shavanna

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