Mike Town, right, speaking with Philippe Cousteau, grandson of explorer Jacques Cousteau, who presented him with the Green Prize in Public Education April 19.
As in "we have 30 solar panels," "we recycled 13 tons of material," or "we’ve met Kyoto, and by the end of this year we should be about 40 percent below Kyoto."
A Redmond High School environmental science teacher for 25 years, Town’s "we" includes his students, who have helped him implement a variety of environmental practices at the school. "The programs that I developed are owned in collaboration with them," he says.
"Kyoto" is the international Kyoto Protocol that took effect Feb. 16, 2005, requiring industrialized countries to reduce their production of greenhouse gases an average of 5.2 percent by the year 2012.
On a personal level, Kyoto is also part of Town’s inspiration for the Cool School Challenge (www.coolschoolchallenge.com), a program to help schools reduce their own carbon emissions, and the primary reason he was nominated for the Green Prize. Town got the idea for the challenge on a bicycle ride, while thinking about former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels’ challenge to all cities at the U.S. Mayor’s Conference, to reduce their carbon emissions in accordance with the Kyoto Protocol.
Town thought, why not take the challenge further?
In smaller cities, he said, "The single biggest (carbon-dioxide) point-source is the local high school." For a city to successfully reduce its carbon emissions, its high school had to join the effort. Town said, "What a great opportunity to educate kids and get them involved at the same time!"
He enlisted the help of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, Puget Sound Energy, and the state’s Department of Ecology to create and sponsor the Cool School Challenge, now in its fourth year. Each participating school receives training on energy audits and ways to reduce its energy consumption.
The program includes lessons, projects and training for both students and teachers on climate change, energy consumption, green power, waste reduction and transportation and heating alternatives. Town’s students have studied the consumption of not only their own school building, but also several area municipal buildings which requested the audits. The results showed, in Town’s words, "lots of room for improvement."
Redmond High School has made significant improvements since taking the Cool School Challenge, including reducing its annual electric bill by $30,000. More importantly to Town, the school has recycled 13 tons of material, reducing its overall carbon dioxide output by more than 40 tons.
"People always ask how much money they’ll save," Town said about simple energy conservation steps like turning off a light when you leave the room. Well, money is not a driving factor for Town, or for his students, but carbon dioxide is. "So, we’ve developed a program that shows how much carbon you can save."
Using the Classroom Carbon Calculator (available for download on the Challenge Web page), Town compared the savings from switching off his classroom’s lights for an hour. Each hour the lights are off saves the school about $.08 in electricity, or a full pound of carbon emissions. Neither amount is really significant by itself, Town says, but the cumulative effect can be huge, even for something as simple as conservation.
"We also want to show that global climate change is not as difficult to combat as people think it is."
More than 70 schools nationwide have taken the Cool School Challenge and started learning how to be environmentally responsible citizens. It’s a little like a version of the environmental science class that Town has been teaching for the past 13 years – ever since the course became eligible for college credit as an Advanced Placement class.
Environmental science incorporates natural science and ecosystems, agriculture, a study of the waste stream, energy production and consumption and pollution.
"It’s very integrated," Town says. "You can teach science, math, policy, history, economy … and the kids understand why the stuff they’re learning is important."
About half of the Redmond High School student body takes the environmental science class, and Town hopes to greatly expand his work with science education next year. He has accepted a one-year fellowship with the National Science Foundation to work on science education issues in Washington, D.C.
He’ll take a leave from his job, and says he’ll miss living in the Snoqualmie Valley. But he won’t need to stop saying "we" any time soon. His wife, Meg, a science teacher at Redmond Junior High School, will join him in this opportunity.
Also, he says, "Inevitably, we’d like to expand environmental education across the United States."
One possible reason for Town’s fondness of the word "we" is likely a quote from Margaret Mead on the Cool School Challenge Web page: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
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