Frizzy hair, cold showers and layers of sweatshirts. Sounds like finals week, but students at Revelle, Muir and Sixth Colleges were chasing another challenge. In a race to win UCSD’s Green Campus energy conservation project, students cut back on their electricity usage, especially from January
to March. And the winner was! Revelle College, who reduced their energy consumption by 19.74 percent, narrowly beating Muir College at 15.42 percent.

The contest ended on March 5, and Revelle College won an ice cream party and a pass to offset some of its carbon emissions for winning the contest. Organizers encouraged students to conserve energy by turning off lights when not in use, reducing hairdryer usage, taking shorter and colder showers, unplugging unused appliances and line-drying clothes in an effort to raise awareness.

“I think it’s important because it’s teaching them skills that they can use through their entire life,” Green Campus intern and John Muir College junior Jessica Wall says.

Most student organizers displayed posters, sent out e-mails and practiced what they preached. Sixth College also screened Al Gore’s global warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. “We want our student to think about what it means to be a global citizen,” says Sixth College Resident Dean Marciano Perez. “Part of that is being aware of the environment.”

Cliff Notes written by Neda Oreizy, ’08