By Victoria Pan, Ridgewood High School – Ridgewood, NJ

My name is Victoria Pan, and I’m a junior at Ridgewood High School in Ridgewood, NJ. I’m also the co-president of the Students for Environmental Action (SEA) club, and I’m very concerned with environmental issues especially regarding energy consumption.

One year ago, our school, Ridgewood High School, started the Turn Off the Lights project. It involved students turning off the classroom lights every week, which saved energy and electricity costs while raising awareness about energy conservation at the same time. Now, we’re planning for the installation of a motion-sensored lighting system, as well as other projects to reduce our school’s energy consumption and educate others. Our vision is to make our school more sustainable—and that means enforcing such practices to protect our resources for the future.

I couldn’t help wondering, though, about the even bigger impact we would make if we got a whole network of schools across the nation turning off the lights. If my school alone can save so much energy from such simple idea, imagine the amount of energy that can be saved from thousands of schools!

I knew there were schools just like mine that were trying to deal with the problems of wasting money and resources from unnecessary energy consumption. I wanted to help those schools become more energy-efficient too by connecting with my school, and joining us on the same path toward that goal.

The Students for Environmental Action club is introducing a new, exciting initiative to other high schools across the nation, called Students Saving Energy.

The goal is simple: to help schools become more energy-efficient.

Our vision is to create a network of schools joined by the same goals for becoming more sustainable. With this collaboration, we can work together to spread a powerful message across the nation about our efforts to achieve sustainability.

We’re reaching out to as many schools as we possibly can to gather participation, and we feel that one of the best ways to do so is through community involvement. Imagine if schools across the nation started implementing similar processes. Imagine the amount of money we would save, the awareness we would raise in our communities, if we all worked together to make our schools more sustainable. We hope high schools like ours to join the Students Saving Energy network today to become part of the growing student-led movement to take energy-saving initiatives in our own schools!

Joining this network is very simple. You don’t necessarily have to be involved with your environmental club, or even have one for that matter (We could help you start one though!) All that is required is the passion and the motivation for change. If you want to make a difference in your school, then you’ve come to the right people.

All you have to do is submit a Sustainability Pledge for your school. When do you, we will contact you right away to give you the necessary resources to start a hands-on energy project!

A Sustainability Pledge is an action a school is taking or a goal it wants to take to reduce its energy consumption, whether it is through turning off the lights every week, installing motion sensored lights, doing an energy audit, or getting solar panels.

So far, 11 schools are SSE members and are working to reduce their energy consumption. Some have actually started the Turn Off the Lights project. Others already have made progress with efficient systems and are working toward even more improvements. In the future, we hope to see all schools in the nation follow the same goals to achieve sustainability.

We’re aiming for 100 pledges by the end of 2011. But in order to reach that goal, we need YOUR effort. Achieving these steps will prove that students can make a difference to achieve a greener earth. You see, the power lies in the numbers. If all students work together, a lasting impact will be created.

Visit our website for more information: www.studentssavingenergy.org