G. Casey Cassidy
A few months ago, shortly before our Christmas vacation, I was having lunch in our faculty lounge with several of my colleagues. Typically, we would use the kitchen sink to wash up before our noonday meal, and although we would consciously try to shut off the hot water faucet, it would continue to drip. At various times, it would leak more than others depending on the pressure exerted on the closure lever by different school personnel and as we sat there having lunch, the dripping facet would become a daily topic of conversation. It just seemed incredible to us that given current concern for energy awareness and energy conservation that this hot water faucet would continue to waste energy and taxpayers dollars without anyone giving such “small problem” a second thought.
After we returned from our Christmas vacation, our faucet not only continued to drip but now it had increased to a steady flow of hot water. It was then that we realized that our small problem was really emblematic of a much larger problem and that this would provide our science class with a unique opportunity to get involved with a “first handed” science project that not only would teach us valuable conservation methods but also allow us to make recommendations to our Clemente School Planning and Management Team as to reducing energy waste in our building.
After carefully selecting an investigation team comprised of four eighth grade students, we calculated the approximate water loss from the faucet daily, both before and after the lunch time crowd, for a period of ten days. We used an empty quart soda bottle and a stop watch, graphing our daily results on flow charts. At the end of our testing period, we had accumulated some staggering data. From that single hot water faucet, we were losing approximately one quart of water every three minutes . . . that’s approximately twenty quarts or 5 gallons per day and approximately forty four thousand gallons per year, assuming that this condition was allowed to continue without repair. Compounding this problem, all this water had to be heated and additional cost was incurred as this wasted water was transported to the area sewage facility. After speaking with several staff members and building administrators, the faucet was finally adjusted and new washers were installed, saving New Haven taxpayers additional moneys.
Subsequently, this year I’ve decided to develop a curriculum unit that focuses on energy conservation as it directly relates to our physical plant at Clemente. We will concentrate on analyzing utility usage involving the South Central Regional Water Company, The United Illuminating Company and the Southern Connecticut Gas Company. In a time of major budget constraints, the rationale for this unit might allow us to reallocate any moneys that can be saved with energy conservation methods to programs that will enhance the educational opportunities for our students.
Specific lesson plans will emphasize “hands-on” experiments with measured expenditures of energy, research to identify potential problem areas and to make recommendations to remedy the problem situation, invitations to guest speakers from each of the local utility companies, and because our class is self-contained, we will engage in an interdisciplinary form of learning as we research the histories of these local utilities, correspond with their representatives both orally and in written form and conclude our unit with individual student assessments of their energy expenditures in their respective homes. Hopefully this unit will serve to create a greater awareness among our students and staff alike. It is a lesson that I hope our students will practice throughout their adult lives.
