Zilowatt
The ZILOWATT project aims to provide a set of educational tools as part of an integrated program to educate students in energy and sustainability concepts and practical, related conservation behaviors that creates a culture of conservation in the school community and saves significant amounts of energy costs at schools. The program relies on a specially designed, hands-on labs and lessons that teach STEM concepts and link to every day behaviors and feedback to kids on their own impact on the environment. The goal is to motivate lasting changes in conservation habits in the student and at the school.
About You
About You
First Name
Bret
Last Name
Andersen
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Zilowatt
Organization Website
Organization Phone
650-380-3067
Organization Address
840 Ames Ave., Palo Alto, CA
Organization Country
United States
Country where this project is creating social impact
United States
Is your organization a
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How long has your organization been operating?
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Innovation
Entry Form title
Zilowatt
What change do you want to bring to the world?
The ZILOWATT project aims to provide a set of educational tools as part of an integrated program to educate students in energy and sustainability concepts and practical, related conservation behaviors that creates a culture of conservation in the school community and saves significant amounts of energy costs at schools. The program relies on a specially designed, hands-on labs and lessons that teach STEM concepts and link to every day behaviors and feedback to kids on their own impact on the environment. The goal is to motivate lasting changes in conservation habits in the student and at the school.
What are the primary activities of your project?
Our volunteer team (including STEM professionals) is creating and pilot testing Zilowatt materials (labs, lessons, website) and measure impact at both typical and underpriviledged schools. We plan to enable STEM professionals to contribute lesson material and ideas for program improvement directly via the Zilowatt website.
What is innovative about your initiative? How is it a new contribution to the field?
Zilowatt teaches science, technology, engineering and math concepts using engaging, hands-on, learning experiences that are linked to practical actions by students and staff and measurement of their impact on resource conservation in their actual classroom, school and home environments. It simultaneously helps schools economically build their own behavior change program to capture the large energy savings that are possible at schools through simple conservation actions. Evidence from case studies and audits at schools across the country showed that such measures can lead to 10 to 25 percent annual savings in energy consumption at schools.
What stage is your project in?
Operating for 1‐5 years
Tell us about the community that you engage? eg. economic conditions, political structures, norms and values, demographic trends, history, and experience with engagement efforts.
We can address any school districts but we have a special focus on low income districts like East Palo Alto, Ravenswood district. These disadvantaged districts are desperately looking for more effective and engaging STEM related teaching materials and they also need to reduce operating costs in order to retain staff and programs in an era of reduced funding for schools. One way to do that is to reduce their energy bills using energy education and behavior change. A district could save $100,000 to $200,000 dollars on a $1,000,000 bill each year with a free energy education program provided by the likes of Zilowatt.
Share the story of the founder and what inspired the founder to start this project
This project was started by Silicon Valley parents and entrepreneurs (STEM professionals) as part of their effort to help schools integrate sustainability concepsts into the curriculum while reducing their energy needs and saving money in an era of reduced school funding.
Social Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
Please describe how your project has been successful and how that success is measured
So far we have delivered early forms of our solar labs, light labs, wind labs and lesson cards to about 10 schools. We measure our success by the number of schools we serve, qualitative evaluations from teaching staff, amounts of funding attracted to deliver the program at schools (over $50k so far). We also intend to measure impacts on energy use and costs at participating schools and classrooms over time as our program becomes more comprehensive.
How many people have been impacted by your project?
101-1,000
How many people could be impacted by your project in the next three years?
More than 10,000
How will your project evolve over the next three years?
The development of the website with freely accessible tools and labs and lesson materials for purchase will enable scale to be acheived. We can build a central staff to maintain the website, build and ship materials. We will promote the program via sustainability related school conferences and utility companies throughout the US and eventually other countries.
Sustainability
What barriers might hinder the success of your project and how do you plan to overcome them?
For now, the organization is run by volunteers. We need to hire professional management to assure continued forward momentum. We also need to tap into the standard science curriculum in each district so that teaching staff sees Zilowatt materials as a more effective replacement for existing/old materials used to teach STEM topics.
Tell us about your partnerships
We are tapping into two elements of demand: 1)for innovative, hands-on, engaging lesson experiences in science, math, technology and engineering; 2)for energy conservation and renewable energy where many STEM professionals, renewable energy companies and utilities want to develop programs at our schools. We attract grant funding (more than $50k so far) from the power utilities serving the schools. The science staff typically recommends funding from PTA and sustainability organizations. An increasing number of power utility companies provide grant money for conservation and energy education projects at the schools they serve. We work directly with the science teaching staff and sustainability clubs at schools, and the local power utility companies. The City of Palo Alto Utilities (CPAU) has given about $ 21,000 in grant funding already in 2010 and plans another $21,000 in 2011 to fund the Zilowatt program. Additionally, the Palo Alto PTA and or CPAU will provide $3,250 more for rollout to all k-8 schools. Additionally, the Discovery Charter School of San Jose committed $3500 in Pacific Gas and Electric grant money to Zilowatt.
Twelve Palo Alto Schools have already been introduced to Zilowatt project information. Six have expressed interest in being pilot schools. Other interested schools and districts that have indicated strong interest but not committed funds include; one private school in Palo Alto, the school district of East Palo Alto, CA (8 campuses); The school district of Soledad, CA (in partnership with Stanford Solar Wind Energy Project)and many other schools have indicated interest but the program would need more time and resources to approach them.
Current annual budget of project, in US dollars
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Explain your selections
Zilowatt is currently developed and operated by volunteers. Some volunteers have contributed funds. The school (customer) PTA and sometimes science departments pay provide some money for Zilowatt materials. Local power utility companies provide grant money for programs for their school customers.
How do you plan to strengthen your project in the next three years?
Increase the webenabled video and instruction materials for a more self serve format. We also plan to increase the breadth of the tools, labs and lessons used to address more STEM topics in the area of sustainability and motivate more energy conservation behavior and measurement. Finally, we will expand our partnership with power utility companies across the U.S. and beyond.
Partnerships and Accountability
Please tell us more about how your partnership was formed and how it functions. What specific role does each partner play? What unique resources does each partner bring to the initiative?
The science staff at schools evaluates, provides feedback and direction on needs, and recommends the programs and materials we provide to other staff and schools. The power utility companies provide grant money for conservation and energy education projects at the schools they serve and support the measurement efforts where bills/consumption metrics are required. As the program develops a track record we anticipate schools will feel justified in providing funding in view of both the student learning outcomes and the energy cost savings that can be achieved.
How are you building in accountability for students' successful STEM learning outcomes? Please provide a summary and examples.
For now we are relying on qualitative feedback from the science teaching staff that use our materials. We plan to facilite more structured feedback and evaluations of student learning outcomes for participating schools on our website as it develops.
Needs
Investment, Human Resources/Talent, Marketing/Media, Mentorship.
Please use this space to elaborate on your selection above and/or to add needs that may not be listed.
Web and materials design and development is the most costly and specialized need to acquire at this point.
Offers
Please use this space to elaborate on your selection above and/or to add offers that may not be listed.
 | 41 weeks agoBret Andersen said: Thank you for that question. I can answer here as follows: Our current volunteer team (including STEM professionals) is creating and ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 42 weeks agoBret Andersen updated this Competition Entry. |
| 43 weeks agoCameo Brown said: "Create and pilot test Zilowatt materials (labs, lessons, website) and measure impact at both typical and underpriviledged schools." - ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 43 weeks agoCameo Brown said: "Create and pilot test Zilowatt materials (labs, lessons, website) and measure impact at both typical and underpriviledged schools." - ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 43 weeks agoBret Andersen updated this Competition Entry. |
| 43 weeks agoBret Andersen submitted this idea. |
