Whitmore Elementary REAPs
$5,000 Award for Saving Energy

Principal Kristine Hansen Says Saving Energy & Recycling Are a “…Way of Life” at the Tucson Campus

TUCSON – JAN. 8, 2008 – Whitmore Elementary School has reaped the benefits of saving energy.

The school won the $5,000 first-place award in the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) Resource Efficiency Awareness Program (REAP) for fiscal year 2007. Whitmore reduced its utility costs 18.33 percent for a savings of $11,906.71.

"It's all about the staff and kids,” Principal Kristine Hansen explained. “The earth is ours to take care of and not waste."

Whitmore has placed every year in the REAP recognition, but this is the first time the school won first-place.

Hansen and Whitmore’s staff have mobilized students to save energy. Each classroom saves recyclable materials in a large, green plastic bin, and brings it to the weekly outdoors assembly where Hansen empties the contents into the dumpster. Hansen also practices what she preaches, carrying out the recycling bin from her office and emptying it at each assembly.

Whitmore’s eight-member Student Council, which has two representatives from each class in the second- to fifth-grades, is also active in the Energy Patrol Program. Students walk around the building, checking to see if the lights are out and water is turned off, if the air-conditioning is off and if classroom doors are locked. They decide which color dots each room receives as a result of its performance, with green dots for the best jobs.

Whitmore has also earned the Energy Star Award from the U.S. Department of Energy for saving energy. In addition, the school has joined Cartridge World to recycle ink cartridges. The company picks up the school's used ink cartridges, generating additional funding for the Student Council.

"We build it (energy savings and recycling) into the curriculum," Hansen said. "It's not separate because it's a way of life here."