University of California, Merced
EN-1: Student Educators Program

The UC Merced PowerSave Campus program is funded by the Alliance to Save Energy, a non-profit organization based in Washington D.C. The objective of the PowerSave Campus Program is to embrace the culture of sustainability through student led projects. These projects consist of building retrofits, green career panels, impactful behavior changes, and initiatives that save energy or water within campus. Here at UC Merced we have a team of four student interns and multiple volunteers that help integrate the four main pillars of the program: water conservation, energy efficiency, green workforce development, and academic infusion. Peer-to-peer outreach activities include auditing workshops, tabling, electronic outreach, and organizational partnerships. An auditing workshop will teach participants the fundamentals of auditing a building for lighting, plug loads, HVAC, and water. The fundamentals include an explanation of all the auditing equipment (e.g. Kill-a-watt meter, foot-candle meter, water audit bags, drip gauge, etc.), sample calculations of determining the appropriate lighting for certain rooms, and a hands-on audit where the participants audit a building themselves with the help of PowerSave Student Interns. Tabling includes a bike-blender attached to a bike, anyone peddling on the bike can create their own smoothie. This is a great way to exemplify that energy saving is exciting. Electronic outreach, using MailChimp includes monthly newsletters of five articles regarding sustainability on the UCM campus, sustainability in the news and community, as well as in world events. Organizational partnerships include fraternities and sororities, clubs, ASUCM, and community organizations.

Students are recommended to volunteer with PowerSave to grasp how the program operates. PowerSave members are selected through a standard process which requires a resume and cover letter from all students interested. After paperwork has been submitted by interested students and reviewed, the team selects about 6-10 students for a formal interview on campus. The formal interview includes a series of questions asked from each member of the existing team including the team’s campus lead from Oakland, CA. After the interview process is over, the PowerSave team will discuss each student candidate strengths and weaknesses to determine best fit. The candidate(s) will be notified within 24 hours of their interview if they were or were not selected.

Students are trained by both the PowerSave program’s campus lead who is stationed in Oakland, CA, as well as the campus team manager. Students meet their campus lead via Skype for about an hour introduction of the PowerSave Campus program, and the different positional roles on the team. The campus team manager provides information on both campus resources and partnerships to provide up-to-date energy efficient ideas. The campus team manager training session is a 3-4 hour session which includes team building exercises, how to use auditing equipment, examples of calculations for adequate lighting, project planning, implementation, and a building audit.

The PowerSave campus program is supported through student paid internships, faculty, staff, and organizational campus partnerships that help promote PowerSave campus activities.

As of December 2015 Alliance to Save Energy "PowerSave" Green Campus student program funding has been discontinued and the group is no longer intact.