By Daily Press staff
John Adams Middle School’s Science Magnet Students will take to the streets on Saturday, dressing in red PEAK T-shirts and hats and arming themselves with holiday bags of — you guessed it — energy efficient light bulbs.
The students will be going from small business to small business in the Main Street shopping area, bringing bulbs as gifts to the shop owners, and letting them know about free energy efficiency tune-ups being made available through the Six Cities Energy Project.
Each Small Business tune-up is valued at $1,000 in directly installed efficiency measures and, depending on the business, may be worth $5,000 in savings over time. And that’s before businesses leverage any of these savings through reinvestments based on the Six Cities Energy Project contractors’ suggestions.
John Adams Middle School has become known as a leader in energy efficiency. Science and math teachers have involved thousands of students in the PEAK Student Energy Actions program over five years, and two Adams teachers — Linda Cady and Joel Post — traveled to Sweden last summer to train nearly 100 Swedish teachers to implement PEAK activities.
The “Holiday Light-Up” is just the next expansion of the program. Students have already taken their energy knowledge home and in many cases, PEAK families report savings of 10-25 percent off their utility bills when they implement “smart energy management” suggestions. The school itself has been the focus of much attention, from professional engineers as well as students, and it is now poised for next year’s installation of a solar panel array. This is the first time, though, that students have ventured into the business community.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 12, 2003. Read the original PDF.