Week 5: Story Idea
February 1 kicked off the start of “The Biggest Saver: Battle of the Halls Energy Challenge” in UF dorms across campus. The challenge will last until March 10. The winning dorm will receive a celebration in honor of the achievement and students will get free shirts. I would like to do a story on this to try and get awareness about what UF is doing to cut back on energy consumption.
It seems UF student Claire Long is in charge of the event. It’s co-sponsored by the Office of Sustainability, UF Department of Housing and Residence Education, and Gators for a Sustainable Campus. They’ve created a Web site especially for the event. The site has copies of posters that anyone can print out and post on campus, a complete bulletin board kit and an official Office of Sustainability letter to send out to sponsors asking for help. http://thebiggestsaveruf.googlepages.com/
I’d want to know how each dorm is planning on getting resident awareness at its highest. What are they planning? Will they be tracking the energy usage in a common area? How many people have already signed up on the Facebook group to participate? I’d also talk to some residents at different dorms to get an idea how they plan to participate. I’d also want to talk to Claire Long to better understand why this event started. I’d then contact the Office of Sustainability to get more information and some quotes from DeDee DeLongpre about what the office is trying to accomplish with this event. Do they have a goal in mind about how much energy they’d like to save by March 10?
For the online aspect, I’d have a graph that automatically updates the energy consumption for each of the dorms so people could see who is in the lead. I’d also have tips on how to cut back energy usage and a link to the Office of Sustainability Web site. For the artwork, I might want a short video clip of what UF is doing elsewhere on campus to help save the environment.
