Sprouts: Energy Lite at the Northeast Youth Summit

By Lilly

During the three-day weekend of Veterans Day, the Sprouts of Hope had the incredible opportunity to join in a day of activities and workshops with other groups at the Northeast Regional Roots & Shoots Youth Summit. In other years we’ve attended this magnificent event in Boston, but this time it was held in New York City, so we went to the city that never sleeps.

At the summit, the Sprouts of Hope presented a workshop about our book, "Energy Lite" and how it works in libraries for kids and families to borrow along with a Kill A Watt meter.

We began by introducing the members of our Roots & Shoots group — from left to right, Eliza, Lilly, Risa, Maya and Kaya.

Then we explained how we became interested in Kill-A-Watt meters and now they can measure the energy that our household appliances use. We told those who came to our workshop about our partnership with N-Star — when we tried out Smart Meters to measure energy use throughout our homes — and how they also gave us Kill-A-Watt meters to use.

Next, we explained how we put our book together — from coming up with ideas for what we’d write about to outlining it on index cards to writing its various sections. We shared the story of how we managed to get our book and Kill A Meters into public libraries in Cambridge, Boston, Medford, MA and Central Falls, Rhode Island; this is which is an ongoing project of ours and we are going to raise by crowdfunding online so we can get our book and a meter into all of the 370 public libraries in Massachusetts.

We used Kill-A-Watt meters to show how much energy three different light bulbs use — incandescent (they use the most), CFLs (less than incandescent) and LEDs (that use a lot less than even CFLs). We also showed how much energy a hairdryer uses. The answer: a lot, especially when turned on high — so try to let your hair dry naturally.

In our presentations about “Energy Lite,” we share information about energy use — and how to conserve use of it, but we also want to pass along a message that can help kids to make their ideas turn into real projects that make a difference in other people's lives. So we pass along our motto of the 3P’s — Partners, Patience and Persistence. These are the three things we keep in mind as we work to make our projects successful.

We told those who came to our workshop about our partners — our local utility, NStar, P3, the company that makes Kill A Watt meters and donated 20 of their meters to the Cambridge Public Library when we gave the library our book, and Shonak Patal, who created a local website called Swellr and came to talk with us about crowdfunding our project. We are grateful to all of them for their support and encouragement.

Our experience in working with our local library spoke to the value of partnerships in making big projects happen and about the patience and persistence that will be required of us as we try to raise money in the spring to make “Energy Lite” and Kill A Watt Meters an item that families can borrow from their local libraries across our state.

We hope people left our workshop with a better idea of how to take action. Those who came to it were very enthusiastic in what we are doing and showed a lot of interest in our book. One teacher took a copy to put into the library at her school, and two New Yorkers expressed an interest in getting our book into New York public libraries. Overall, we thought the workshop went very well and it was a great experience.

Using Our Book to Teach about Energy

By Eliza

On Saturday, May 21^st, the Sprouts of Hope had the opportunity to display our book, “Energy Lite,” at the Cambridge Climate Change Week ActionFest.It was very exciting to spread the word about our project to people who, like us, are interested in global warming and the environment. The event took place at Cambridge College, and people from many organizations gathered to educate the community about the issues facing our planet. Among these organizations were the Cambridge Energy Alliance and the Cambridge Climate Emergency action group.

The Sprouts set up a table with copies of our book and Kill A Watt meters. We gave out information about “Energy Lite,” Roots & Shoots, and energy conservation in general. We had a raffle (people filled out an energy conservation pledge to enter), and at the end of the day, we raffled off two Kill A Watt meters.

We also baked cookies in an oven while we measured with a Kill A Meter how much energy we were using! Just the smell of cookies cooking lures people to our display.

During the past few weeks, we have been very active in spreading the word about our book. On Thursday, May 19^th, two of the Sprouts were able to attend the HEET Vampire Hunt and Efficiency Ware Party, where we got to talk to some interesting people about projects that we have worked on for several years as Sprouts – as well as our hopes for the future.

Speaking of the future, it seems as if all of our hard work at getting the word out about “Energy Lite” is paying off. Recently, Green Decade/Cambridge gave us a $300.00 grant to print more copies of "Energy Lite," and now we've found out that our book will be going into the Boston Public Library system. From the books we printed with our grant, we are giving the Boston libraries 40 copies to spread throughout their library branches — and they will be paired with Kill A Watt meters that are already there. And a nonprofit organization called Boston Climate Action Network (BCAN) will use “Energy Lite” as a way to teach kids about energy use and conservation this summer. And four copies of “Energy Lite” are going to be put into the Medford (MA) libraries, too.

We are very excited about these small steps forward, and hope to continue promoting energy efficiency in the future.

Energy Efficiency: A Field Trip to Navigant

Machines and the Energy They Use

By Kaya

On December 8^th the Sprouts of Hope took a field trip to visit Tim Sutherland, an energy efficiency expert who heard of us being interviewed on the Callie Crossley radio show on June 22nd. At that time we were talking about the new book we’d written called “Energy Lite,” and how it was going to be in the Cambridge Public Library for families to borrow along with a Kill A Watt meter.

Tim was driving in his car when he heard us talk about our Kill A Watt book project. He told us that he was excited to hear us —as teenagers—talking about using the same kind of meters that he relies on to measure the energy efficiency of machines like air conditioners and washing machines.

When we met him, Tim told us he thought it was amazing that we’d done this book about saving energy by using Kill A Watt meters—and he wanted to meet us.

He works for Navigant Consulting where he does projects for the U.S. Department of Energy. He is paid to figure out how technology can be made more energy efficient. He works with Heather Lisle, and on the day we visited, their colleague Judy Reich was there, too, with her son and daughter, who are about the same age as we are.

Tim and Heather spend their time taking apart different kinds of machines, such as washing machines, refrigerators and freezers and window air conditioning units. They both studied science in college and Tim majored in aerospace engineering and rocket science at MIT before he decided that he wanted to do something about energy efficiency. We found out that Heather graduated from Dartmouth after studying earth science and physics. Judy studied mechanical engineering, aerospace, and science research.

Now they all work on these projects at Navigant, where they take apart and test appliances. By doing so they learn the best designs that create more energy efficient machines. They use a sophisticated meter to gauge the energy use of each machine as well as its stand-by (vampire) power usage. With a washing machine, the goal is to find ways for the machine to use about 0.01 watts when the power is off.

After Tim and Heather told us about their work, they showed us various parts of a washing machine that they’d taken apart—and we learned how magnets can work to make them more energy efficient.

Tim also told us about LEDs, which stands for Light-emitting diode, and he explained how these lights are even more energy efficient than compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL). You can see Eliza holding an LED in her right hand and a CFL in her left.

Right now the LED bulbs are very expensive compared with CFLs and incandescent bulbs. But as was the case when people started to use CFLs to replace incandescent bulbs, these new LEDs cost a lot more to buy. However, they also last a lot longer than CFLs and consume less energy. So pretty soon it’s likely that more and more people will be using them. And LEDs don’t have the mercury problem that CFLs do, so they aren't a health problem if you drop them and disposing of them isn't so complicated.

Since we've gotten accustomed to using CFLs and like knowing how much energy we were saving by using them, we were shocked to find out how much more energy can be saved by using LEDs. Thanks to Tim and Health for showing us this difference.

We had a fun time visiting with Tim and Heather and Judy and learning about their jobs and seeing where they work. Hopefully sometime we can work together on a project.

Dr. Jane Goodall + The Sprouts of Hope

Presenting “Energy Lite” to Dr. Jane Goodall

By Kaya

On May 1, the Sprouts of Hope attended a very special event, which took place at the Roger Williams Park Zoo, in Providence, Rhode Island. Along with 12 other Roots & Shoots groups from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Maine, we had an amazing opportunity to spend the day with Dr. Jane Goodall. Yes, it was extremely exciting. Although we had already met her a few times in the past, we were still ecstatic. After all, it was Jane Goodall!

We began our Saturday very early, driving from Cambridge, MA to the zoo at 8:00 AM! When we arrived at the zoo, we headed for the Roots & Shoots tent, where each of the groups had its own table to show others the project they are working on. Some groups were learning more about endangered whales, specifically the Right Whale; others have been doing fundraisers to raise money for different causes related to helping animals or people or the environment, which are the three goals of Roots & Shoots. We came up with nicknames for a few of the groups; The Whale Group 1, The Whale Group 2 and GGOD, which stood for “Go Green Or Die.”

The project we exhibited was not about whales, homeless shelters, or parrots in Guyana. Instead, it was about a book we wrote called “Energy Lite” that describes why and how families – parents and kids – can use Kill A Watt meters in their homes to learn about ways to conserve energy use and pay less for energy bills. We came up with some fun experiments that parents and kids can do together. To demonstrate some of them, at our table we had hairdryer plugged into a Kill A Watt meter as well as a toaster oven.

In the toaster oven, we baked chocolate chip cookies, which lured people to our table with the delicious smell of baking cookies. And when they got there we’d show them how much energy these appliances use! They were always amazed, and a lot of them told us they would let their hair dry without using a hairdryer – now that they knew how much energy it uses.

Many people were very amazed at what we had done in writing this book, and they congratulated us on our accomplishments. We also explained about our book – along with a Kill A Watt – will be available soon in all of the Cambridge Public Libraries so that people can take the book and the meter home, just like they’d check out a book or a CD.

When people told us that enjoyed our project, we gave them one of the Sprouts of

Hope business cards that I designed. It has our blog’s Web address on it, so we are hoping more people will come to read what we write about what the Sprouts of Hope do. Some people even wanted to know if our books were on sale. Unfortunately, they’re not, at this time, but we hope to sell them in the future!

Each Roots & Shoots group got a chance to go on the stage and present their projects to Dr. Jane, as she tells us to call her. She sat in the front row and really enjoyed learning about what we are doing to change the world. Eliza spoke about our “Energy Lite” book project, as the rest of the Sprouts went up on stage to help show big photographs of pages from our book.

We are so grateful to Dr. Jane for writing her words of encouragement and support about our project, and now her words are on our book’s back cover. It was amazing for us read what she said about our effort: “The Sprouts of Hope have come up with such a simple idea that can make such a very big difference.”

After our presentation, we handed a copy of “Energy Lite” to Dr. Jane that each of us had signed – as its authors.

During the rest of the day we explained our project again and again to people. First to Roots & Shoots people, then to the public, who came by our table on the way to getting Dr. Jane to sign one of her books that they’d purchased.

Dr. Jane signed a copy of her new book, "Hope for Animals and Their World," for each of

us, and here is the message she wrote for us:

“Follow your dream. Jane Goodall.”

Dr. Jane must have been much more exhausted than we were! She continued to sign books until 7:00 that night—and she had started at about 2:00 in the afternoon! Wow!

We all had a very fun time at the zoo. It was great fun to meet Dr. Jane (again!), to look at all the adorable animals, and to spread our knowledge of Kill A Watt meters to others! This day was truly one of the best Roots & Shoots events we have attended. With all the excitement, teaching and demonstrating, how could we not love it?

A Leadership Summit with Dr. Jane

By Lilly

On Sunday, May 2, an invited group of New England Roots & Shoots members gathered at the Lenox Hotel in Boston – an environmentally friendly hotel – for a Leadership Summit with Dr. Jane Goodall. Dr. Jane told us a bit about the history of Roots & Shoots, including that next year will be its 20-year anniversary. She also had encouraging words for us as she spoke about how Roots & Shoots is affecting young people everywhere.

Dr. Jane told us that she has often run into young people who feel hopeless, as though there is nothing they can do to make things better for animals and people and the environment. She believes that Roots & Shoots is spreading hope and enthusiasm – and she described us as being “ambassadors” for Roots & Shoots, as we spread the word through what we do about the ways that kids are truly making a positive difference and bringing about change – sometimes in ways that then spur adults to act.

All of us sat in a big circle and we talked for a long time about local issues and global change.

Some Roots & Shoots members talked about the apathy they see on their campus and about the lack of knowledge a lot of their peers have when it comes to environmental issues. Others talked about situations involving violence and what they are doing to try to stop it.

We also discussed ideas for an upcoming global Roots & Shoots campaign that will focus on endangered species and climate change. Roots & Shoots members suggested ways to reach out to people in their community and get them interested in learning more about how these topics are connected. We exchanged some interesting comments about “cute” and “not cute” animals that are being affect ed by climate change, and how these animals can be used as part of the campaign.

Our discussion ended with a look back and a look forward. Stories of success were shared and next steps were talked about. It was really inspiring to hear all the things these people have done to make the world a better place. One group told about their success creating a Roots & Shoots group in a low-income area with a lot of violence. We shared our success with getting a pilot composting program into our school – and our work ahead to convince other schools to do composting in their cafeterias.

One of the Roots & Shoots displays at this event was also about composting; kids at the Cotting School -- with whom the Harvard Roots & Shoots group is involved -- brought samples from different stages of the composting process to show how it actually happens.

We had a chance to ask Dr. Jane questions about her work, and a lot of

kids told her about the ways she had inspired them. It was amazing to see how much Dr. Jane has taught us all and to think about how we have all changed by being in Roots & Shoots.

Spreading the Word About Roots & Shoots

By Risa

On Monday night., May 3, Eliza, Maya, Kaya and I participated in an event at the Currier House at Harvard University. It was an opportunity for those who have supported Roots & Shoots to visit with Dr. Jane. We were invited to show these guests our project and to share with them how Roots and Shoots has a positive impact on our lives.

We set up an exhibit on a table with the book we wrote – “Energy Lite,” posters with big photos of pages from our book and a Kill A Watt meter. People seemed to be genuinely interested in our project, and we were delighted to share with them what we’ve accomplished.

Everyone sat down to hear Dr. Jane Goodall speak. She talked about the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) and Roots & Shoots. She spoke about her experiences starting various programs, working with kids, and of course about the chimps she studied for so many years in Africa! After Dr. Jane spoke, Eliza and I told the people about our experiences in Roots & Shoots.

Following Dr. Jane wasn’t easy, but we tried. We shared an overview of what we’ve accomplished over the years, and talked more specifically about our most recent project “Energy Lite.” We also spoke about how Roots & Shoots has motivated and encouraged us to do projects like this in our local community and at our school.

Without Roots & Shoots, The Sprouts of Hope would not have been formed and we would not have been able to make a difference as we have. Our motto is "Have a Dream. Make a Difference," and without Roots & Shoots, we might not have acted on our dreams.

An Evening at Harvard with Dr. Jane Goodall

By Maya

On May 3, after our event at Harvard’s Currier House, the Sprouts of Hope traveled to Harvard’s Sanders Theater for another event with Dr. Jane. It began, her events usually do, with a very long applause from the audience, followed by a pant-hoot, which is the sound that chimpanzees make when they are excited. We’ve learned how to do it from Dr. Jane, whose pant-hoot is simply amazing to hear.

We listened as Dr. Jane and Harvard Professor Richard Wrangham, who worked for three years with Dr. Jane in Gombe, talk about what she’d learned about chimpanzees. It was 50 years ago that Dr. Jane arrived for the first time on the shores of Lake Tanganhika to begin her research on chimpanzees. We learned about the project called Takari, which means “take care,” and what it was doing to help the wild animals in the forest and the people in the nearby communities. We heard many inspiring stories from Dr. Jane about her experiences in Gombe.

We also heard the story of Mr. H, who of course spent the night sitting on the table besides Dr. Jane.

After their conversation and questions from the audience, Sally Sharp Lehman introduced the Sprouts of Hope and asked us to come to the stage. I gave short talk about what the Sprouts are doing and told the audience about our book project, “Energy Lite.” Here is some of what I said:

"Thank you, Dr. Jane, for giving us the confidence to believe that what we do can make a difference. We now know we can. And like those ROOTS that push rocks aside to become SHOOTS, we now know that nothing is impossible to accomplish."

Our friend, Abby Schoenberg, who is a member of the Harvard Roots & Shoots group, also gave a great speech about their projects and her love since childhood for Dr. Jane and Roots & Shoots.

Although the Sprouts have had the amazing opportunity to meet Dr. Jane in the past, I think that each time is more special then the last. This was a very wonderful and inspiring night. As we left Sanders Theater many people who we didn’t know came up to us to say congratulations. Later, I heard that Dr. Jane and Professor Wrangham spent the rest of the night signing their books!

Sprouts of Hope: Writing a Book For Kids and Families

Energy Lite: Using Kill A Watt Meters to Reduce Energy Use

By The Sprouts of Hope

Last April the Sprouts of Hope organized an exhibit for the Cambridge Science Festival, and we used our exhibit to help kids understand more about energy, how we use it and how we can find out how much energy we use in our homes. We showed parents and kids how a Smart Meter works; it measures energy use in our entire house. And we had set up a display with Kill A Watt meters that showed how much energy is saved by using fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) instead of incandescent ones.

A Kill A Watt meter is monitor that tells you exactly how much electrical power an appliance in your home is using. Using it can help you cut down on your carbon footprint.

So, when we plugged a hairdryer into one of our Kill A Watt meters at the exhibit and turned it up to high, the grown-ups and kids couldn't believe how much energy it took to dry their hair. A lot of them told us that they would never dry their hair again!!

This is when we first had the idea of writing a book for kids and parents about using Kill A Watt meters at home. If they had a book and a Kill A Watt meter, parents could find ways to reduce their energy bills and kids could learn about how much energy is consumed by the things they use everyday. And when they find out how much energy they are using, we thought they'd use these things less often or in more efficient ways.

Actually, the idea of writing such a book -- and donating the book and a Kill A Watt meter to the Cambridge Public Library system -- was suggested to us by John Tagiuri. He's a great friend of the Sprouts and had helped us to set up our Cambridge Science Festival exhibit. He'd also taken photographs of us as the Statue of Liberty holding a CFL bulb. [Here's a picture Melissa took of us when John was taking photos of us.]

This fall we started working on Energy Lite, the book we've now written. And while you might think that the topic of Kill A Meters might be a boring subject to write about, it turned out to be a lot of fun, especially when John took pictures of us doing the experiments that we write about in the book. It took us a while to come up with how we'd tell a good story about Kill A Meters and also the best ways to describe what they are and how parents and kids could use them. To figure this out, we brainstormed ideas and then we wrote our ideas on pieces of paper -- describing what we might include on each of these pages.

Then we spread these pages on the floor and rearranged them until we figured out the best order for them in the book. And that's

how our book came to life. We didn't include everything in it that we first thought we would, and as we went along we changed our minds about drawing pictures to go along with our words -- even after we'd already drawn quite a few pictures. [You can see what one of our early page designs looked like.] That's when we decided to use photographs.

Each of the Sprouts was responsible for thinking about and writing two of the pages -- and Maya worked on drawing the cover.

After several meetings, when we reviewed what we'd written and drawn, we'd do the same thing all over again; we'd put our pages on the floor and see how they fit together. And as we wrote more words and thought more about the images to go with them, we started to read them out loud to each other to see if what we'd written made sense. We also wanted to be sure that we were also telling a good story.

Then it was time for our photo shoot with John, who is an amazing photographer and such a great partner with the Sprouts of Hope. We had ideas about what pictures we wanted to use on various pages, so we spent a couple of hours taking ones of all of us using the Kill A Watt meter with different appliances -- a hairdryer, of course, a laptop computer, a toaster over and the light bulbs.

We printed all of photographs that John took and then we became photo editors and selected the ones that we wanted to use in the book. That's when Melissa, who mentors the Sprouts of Hope, took our words and images and worked with her friend, Lois Fiore, who designed the book on her computer.

Now that we are done writing and editing the book, we are going to meet with the director of the Cambridge Public Library system to talk about donating our book and Kill A Watt meters to the main library and to all of its branches. We want families to be able to check it out -- just like they'd check out a book or a DVD from the library. We are trying to figure out how we can get it printed. And we also want to figure out how to spread the word about this book so that maybe other kids will want to write one for their library. It would be wonderful to create a kind of Kill A Watt library all over the country -- and then in cyberspace, too.

Once our book is in the library, we will encourage other people to make similar books and spread the word about conserving energy!