Watch the TMO! video created for the Youth Energy Network by Wade Vroom.
To learn how to start this campaign at your school read through Turn Me Off! one of our Energy Shift Actions.

Combines a viral advertising technique and student designed  TMO stickers to get students turning off lights and monitors. The key to this campaign is keeping it quiet so students don’t know the meaning of the TMO stickers when they get to school and find them everywhere.

Turn Me Off’ 101

Time: Prep ~ 3-4 weeks
Project ~ 2-5 days
Cost: $140.00 for printing stickers
Grade Range: 7-9
Target: Whole School
Note: Click HERE to get a copy of our Energy Shift Checklist to help guide your team through the project.

Step 1 ~ Permission:

Get permission to place Turn Me Off stickers on lights and monitors

Step 2 ~ Numbers:

Count number of lights and monitors, measure monitors for sticker size

Step 3 ~ Design:

Find a student artist to design sticker, chose an acronym that isn’t obvious, i.e. TMO for Turn Me Off

Step 4 ~ Print:

Go on-line and search for print shops that make stickers. The above cost is average, to cut costs get some sticker paper and make them!

Step 5 ~ Plan:

How do you want to introduce students to the meaning of the stickers? Ideally this campaign includes a few days where students don’t know what the stickers mean creating a built in buzz as students ask around about them.  Decide how you want to spread the word beforehand, some ideas include:

-       A contest where home rooms have to guess the meaning of the stickers

-       Placing posters around school a few days after placement explaining meaning and the importance of turning things off

Step 6 ~ Stick:

After school place stickers on all lights and monitors

Step 7 ~ Enjoy!

Put your awareness campaign into action and enjoy as students start turning off lights and monitors!

Designed by: Benji Kent

In schools and communities bottled water has become the norm despite the energy it wastes and unnecessary garbage it produces.  Take a stand in your community against bottled water by raising awareness on bottled water issues, promoting the benefits of tap and selling reusable water bottles as an alternative. Reusable water bottles not only lower a user’s carbon footprint, they promote the use of Toronto tap water, a cheap, high quality eco-alternative.

Ban the Bottle 101

Time: Prep ~ 4-6 months
Cost: $15-22 per bottle, $30-100 for promotion
Grade Range: 10-12
Target: Whole School
Note: Click HERE to get a copy of our Energy Shift Checklist to help guide your team through the project.

Step 1 ~ Permission:

To start off this campaign, you’ll need permission both to sell the metal water bottles on school property and to receive any necessary start up costs for purchasing bottles. If your school is unable to purchase the bottles before the fundraiser, simply set up a system where students pay for their bottles before receiving them so the bottle costs are already covered.

Step 2 ~Research:

There are a number of companies producing metal water bottles, from Switzerland’s stylish aluminum Sigg bottles to Klean Kanteen’s simple stainless steel bottles. Research different distributors in your area to find the best fit for your school, simply go online and search “distributor, (name of bottle brand)”.  Before contacting your chosen distributors for a price quote decide on the size, style, approximate quantity, whether you’d like to personalize the bottle with a school logo and the maximum cost for the bottles you’d like to order.  If you’ve decided to pay the extra cost to personalize the bottles, start by creating high-resolution images in the correct size, decide as a group what works best and then send the image to the distributor.

Step 3 ~ Order

If you’ve decide to order a set number of bottles order now so they’re available when you start your promotion campaign. If you’re going to have students pay for their bottle first, hold off on this step until after your promotion.

Step 4 ~ Promotion

Designed by: Anji Kim

Create a full school promotion campaign to spread the word on the bottles you’ll be selling. Types of promotion include, posters, displays, announcements, jingles, an assembly and/or staged events. The key to promotion is to be creative and develop ideas that will engage the student body. To create a strong message, research hard-hitting facts on bottled water and feature them in your campaign. A great place to start your search is insidethebottle.org.  Creating teams for different areas of promotion (for example, posters, announcements) is a great way to organize your effort and will help you produce promotional materials in a shorter time frame. Promotion ideas include: Bottle Free Zone posters at school entrances and water fountains, a catchy jingle to play between classes, an assembly with a guest speaker, making buttons, placing vinyl stickers around the school, creating a display using empty water bottles, staging a fake protest, wearing campaign specific T-shirts or ties, holding a bottled water taste test, having speakers go to each class and displaying the metal bottles students can buy.

Button designed by: Anji Kim

Step 5 ~ Sell:

Now that everyone at school knows you’re selling bottles and why they should be using them, set up a station to sell them. Ideally this would be done within the same time frame as your promotion campaign. Make sure you make clear announcements on where and when you’ll be selling bottles. Create a deadline for purchasing bottles so students are encouraged to buy a bottle before they sell out. In addition to having a prominent selling station that is manned during a time like lunch, provide first period classes with order forms that you collect by the deadline.

Step 6 ~ Celebrate:

After your campaign is complete, let the school know how many bottles were purchased. To highlight the significance of their decision to turn to tap you could do an audit on the number of plastic water bottles in the recycling bin before and after the campaign, or announce facts on the amount of energy saved through their purchase. For an easy calculation, use the Pacific Institute’s estimate that the production and shipment of one bottle of water is equal to filling that bottle a quarter full with oil.

An awareness campaign using a student created flyer to inform teachers and students about phantom power use and the steps they can take to stop it. The flyer was distributed by teachers to all students in the school in addition to community members during an evening energy assembly at the school.

What exactly is phantom power? Phantom power is the electricity your home appliances and electronics use even when they appear to be off. Some devices that use phantom power are televisions, microwaves, cell phone chargers and remote control sensors.

Click HERE and HERE to download the flyer (front and back) and distribute it at your school!

Phantom Power Busters 101

Time: Prep ~ 3-4 weeks
Cost: $500.00 for printing 1300 8.5”x5.5” colour flyers
Grade Range: 10-12
Target: Whole School
Note: Click HERE to get a copy of our Energy Shift Checklist to help guide your team through the project.

Step 1 ~ Permission:
Gain permission to present the phantom busters flyer to staff during a monthly staff meeting.

Step 2 ~ Research:
Go on-line and find interesting information and facts on phantom power.

Step 3 ~ Design:
Choose a designer to take the information you’ve found, lay it out and make it look exciting. For help with the layout, start with a flyer or brochure template and modify it.

Step 4 ~ Print:
Decide how you would like to print the flyers. If you have a budget, go on-line, search for print shops and get at least three quotes to find the best price. Before calling the printer decide on flyer: size, colour, paper type and quantity. Colour costs at least double so chose the option that works best for you. For a low budget option, use the school photocopier OR even better save paper by distributing it through the school as a PDF

Step 5 ~ Plan:
How do you want to tell teachers about phantom power? Your teachers will be spreading the message on phantom power to the whole school so make your presentation engaging and to the point. Don’t forget to be creative! In addition to showing them the flyer think about: creating a power point, doing demonstration with a wattmeter or running a short skit.

Step 6 ~ Engage:
After your flyers are printed present them to your teachers so all your classmates can receive one. If you’ve had extra flyers printed, hand them out during school community events or even to local community centres

Year to year we amass CDs, DVDs, video games and books. For many of these items, once they’ve been watched, beaten or read they sit around unused. Holding a Green Exchange at your school gives these items new life.  During the Green Exchange students bring in items they no longer use, receive an exchange ticket and then use their ticket to get an item they will use. In the end, students walk away with something new and reduce their carbon footprint by re-using instead of consuming.

Green Exchange 101

Time: Prep ~ 5 weeks
Cost: $0-100.00 depending on promotion
Grade Range: 7-12
Target: Whole School
Note: Click HERE to get a copy of our Energy Shift Checklist to help guide your team through the project.

Step 1 ~ Permission:
Chose a date for the Green Exchange. Decide if you’d like to run the exchange during lunch or as a special event that classes visit during a period. Once you know the date and format get permission to hold the event. Don’t forget to ask permission to run a collection station in the school leading up to the exchange.

Step 2 ~ Items:
Decide what successful exchange items at your school would be. Potential items include: CDs, DVDs, books, video games, board games, and/or clothing. Create an outline for acceptable exchange items; quality is more important than quantity so set standards. For example, if someone brings all their Sponge Bob DVDs you’ll have to decide if that’s worth nine tickets. Other standards include checking that the item is in good condition (not scratched), suitable (not rated R) and legal (not pirated). Last but not least, where will untraded items go after the event? Look into local donation or community centres for an ideal choice.

Step 3 ~ Promote:
What’s the best way to spread the message at your school? Getting students excited about and participating in the exchange is the key to its success. Create cool posters, run announcements, get other clubs involved, hold an assembly with a relevant guest speaker and/or include a raffle for students to enter unused exchange tickets. Remember, if you’re going to hold an assembly, decide early, set your date and reach out to local organizations that speak on issues like carbon footprints, waste or reusing.

A raffle for students to enter unused exchange tickets is an awesome idea that increases participation since all students have a chance to come away with something.  To get raffle items at an affordable price look for in-kind product donations from local businesses. Click HERE for a donation letter template to help you get started.

Step 4 ~ Recruit:
To run a successful exchange you’ll need volunteers to help collect, sort and then monitor items on the day of the exchange.

Step 5 ~ Collect:
Leading up to the exchange hold at least four collection days in a prominent part of the school. Volunteers running the collection station should be familiar with the set standards for acceptable items; unacceptable items can still be collected for donation. Once an item is accepted give the student an exchange ticket to be used on the day of the exchange.

Step 6 ~ Sort:
After you’ve collected all your items sort them by category. Chose a space based on the number of items you’ve received, options include one large space with all items or separate classes/stores for each category. Display all the items on tables that are clearly marked.

Step 6 ~ Exchange:
Put on some music, have volunteers at each table or room and start exchanging! Depending on the number of volunteers, students can exchange at each item section or go to a centralized exchange station. If you’ve decided to run a raffle have a ticket drop-off box and pull tickets at the end of the day.

Step 7 ~ Wrap-up:
Donate all of the items that were not exchanged, let the rest of the school know how many people participated and feel good about a job well done!

Young environmental leaders from across the city come

together for ‘Step to Action’!

The Step to Action ‐ Energy Shift Symposium is an educational event created by

students, for students to share their enthusiasm for environmental action.

Over 200 people will be coming together on Wednesday, April 8th at the Exhibition Place EcoPod for a student-organized symposium focusing on energy conservation and renewable energy. The goal of the event is to inspire secondary school students to take environmental action within their schools and communities by creating a ‘shift in energy!’ Organized by student led groups STEP, and SWITCH together with the support of the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) and the Toronto Renewable Energy Co-operative (TREC), this exciting event will raise awareness about energy issues and find practical solutions everyone can pursue.

Students will be touring the WindShare turbine, sharing the results of recent energy conservation projects taking place within their EcoSchools, developing action plans, and learning from other successful student projects. The Step to Action – Energy Shift Symposium will create a dynamic space for students to connect with local experts and organizations about key energy issues, tour a sustainable condo, hear from University of Toronto’s environmental psychologist Dan Dolderman and leave their mark on a student created model turbine. Some of the organizations participating in this interactive event include: Clean Air Champions, UNA Canada: Youth4Water, Jane Goodall: Roots & Shoots, Greenpeace and the Ontario Clean Air Alliance.

This inspiring shift is supported by:

Often when we print, we forget about the energy and environmental consequences of our actions. It’s so easy to scroll over, and press the print button without giving a second thought to our planet or our energy consumption. When we print, we not only waste paper but also ink.

Did you know?

• Average cost of a wasted page $0.06

• Average employee prints 6 wasted pages per day, that’s 1,410 wasted pages per year!

That’s a lot of paper being wasted, and lots of trees being killed. There’s also a devastating effect to our energy sources as well.

• The U.S. pulp and paper industry is the second largest consumer of energy and uses more water to produce a ton of product than any other industry.

• Production of 1 ton of copy paper uses 11,134 kWh (same amount of energy used by an avg household in 10 months)

SPRANQ, a creative communications agency based in Utrecht, Netherlands, has developed a new font that lets your ink cartridges last longer and makes your printer more energy efficient.

Introducing the

Ecofont is an innovative font that was designed by removing bits of the letter without hindering legibility. After lots of testing, it was found that having small circles in the letters helped reduce ink use yet still maintain readability.

At first, I was apprehensive about seeing holes in my type, but typing in Ecofont at 12pt font was actually very practical. The holes were unnoticeable unless you tried staring at each letter with a magnifying glass! I definitely suggest that you should try it out not only is it practical, but it also looks great and is energy efficient.

Paper facts from:
GreenPrint http://www.printgreener.com/earthday.html

As Northern Secondary School’s only math and science club -SPASM (Society for the Promotion of Advanced Sciences and Maths)- we’re always on the lookout for new and exciting activities that we can host for our fellow students. So while listening to my physics teacher discuss the basics of wind energy, I began thinking of ways of teaching some of these concepts to the rest of the school. And that’s when it hit me! Why only teach kids about one type of renewable energy, when you can have members of Canada’s own green community inspire them to take action?

The Enviro-Tech lecture series was born.

Consisting of two lectures taking place afterschool in one of the school’s many science rooms between January 19th and 20th, the series focused on the technology behind wind and solar power generation, as well as the business and logistical challenges of running a green company. The primary goal was to inspire Northern students to pursue a career in the environment, and I think we did a pretty good job. We had roughly 15-20 people come and listen to Nicole Geneau from Next-Era Energy talk about wind energy, and another 10-15 people attend and hear Nicholas Morgan from Morgan Solar talk about their breakthrough in Concentrated Photovoltaics and the difficulties of starting and running a green energy company.

Overall the event was a great success, and we can’t wait to expand our Enviro-Tech series to include biomass, geothermal, hydro power, and maybe even other schools!

If you’d like some tips on how to organize an Enviro-tech lecture series at your school just leave a comment below and we’ll contact you.

Go Green Power!

Eric Yam

2008-2009 SPASM Co-President