This post is written by Brynne, grade ten student at Dr. Frank J Hayden Secondary School in Halton DSB.
Climate change has been an issue for many years. Only recently are we beginning to realize that it is a problem that we need to take seriously. A large cause of climate change is our energy consumption and production. One of the things we have been learning how to do in Ms. Hayden’s environmental science program is how to calculate the cost or amount of electricity it takes to power all of the lights in our school over a certain period of time.
We found that to power the average classroom for six hours, it uses approximately 6.72 kwh/day. This is a lot of electricity used to power only one classroom and it can become very costly over time.
I think this is a great way to present the fact that we are using our accessibility to electricity poorly because people haven’t been paying attention to how we are impacting our earth with the overuse of electricity so maybe if they can see the costs and numbers, they will begin to pay more attention.
Many students and other young adults feel that they do not have the power to make a change, to make their voice heard but it is simple calculations or projects like this that can be conducted which can go a long way. Raising awareness about conserving energy can be very useful because it shows people that someone cares, and if someone cares then it is worth learning about.
Once the message is out there and people understand how important it is to conserve our energy, hopefully we can start seeing more change and more people talking about this topic. We have been seeing the issue of climate change appear more frequently in the news and on social media this year because of the COP21 conference in Paris. Finally the issue is being dealt with by people in authority but this shouldn’t discourage others from doing their part because if, as a people, we cannot reduce our electricity consumption then no matter what the government does, global warming will get out of our control.
Electricity is something we are very lucky to have and we have learned how to use it in a way that best suits our needs but now using it in such a way is one of the ways we are destroying the one thing we depend on the most…nature.
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