Author: Drew Jaffe
First-year halls clinched first and second place in Occidental’s first-ever conservation challenge, a competition to see which residence hall could reduce its water and energy consumption the most. Stewart-Cleland Hall and Chilcott Hall came in first and second, respectively, followed by Erdman, Bell-Young and Stearns halls.
The average student consumed 25.6 gallons of water during the challenge, down from 26.47 gallons in October of last year. Event organizers Grace Bender (junior) and Lila Singer-Berk (senior) believed the competition to be generally successful, noting the high involvement and enthusiasm in the challenge as particularly exciting, despite several incidents that occurred.
“We did have a little rough patch in the beginning with people trying to cheat but that also showed that people are really interested in water conservation and energy conservation,” Singer-Berk said.
Organizers initially ran into trouble with the event when they learned of several students attempting to sabotage other halls’ results. According to a campus-wide email from Singer-Berk, tactics included doing laundry in other halls, running showers and faucets and engaging in other wasteful activities.
In spite of the initial foul play, Bender and Singer-Berk found overall trends in water and energy reduction to be promising for multiple reasons. While the competition led to a statistical decrease in consumption, Bender observed that awareness of conservation increased across multiple forums.
“The fact that it made to almost every single media [forum]–Facebook, The Weekly, people having conversations about it–was very exciting,” Bender said.
The heightened awareness continued to make an impact after the challenge concluded. Singer-Berk noted that many students have continued to engage in more sustainable behavior, and students in residence halls not included in the challenge – namely Berkus Hall – have pledged to reduce their consumption as well. Bender noted, however, that consumption must be reduced further if Occidental wishes to be fully sustainable.
The success of this semester’s challenge has led Singer-Berk and Bender to consider organizing another event in the spring that would coincide with hundreds of other university conservation challenges across the country. Thinking further ahead, organizers already have plans for a competition in the fall. They are also hoping to coordinate a competition with another school, which would encourage students to reduce campus-wide consumption as opposed to just individual residence halls. According to Bender, this would reduce the cheating seen this year by giving students across campus a shared goal.
With one conservation challenge under their belt, Singer-Berk and Bender felt that all those involved in planning the event, including students from their UEP 246 class, would be better prepared for any future competitions.
“Students [from the class] have been there and are well versed; next year they will have experience to fall back on,” Bender said.
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