Earlier today, students Shreya Indukuri and Daniela Lapidous, both grade 12, spoke at a special keynote lunch at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) meeting in New York City. They appeared with Mike Haas, founder of the Alliance for Climate Education, which organizes assemblies at high schools to promote climate science and bring awareness to the current climate crisis.
The students talked about how seeing an ACE assembly in their freshman year inspired them to take action and start thinking of ways to save energy at Harker. “We thought about how we could save energy at our school and noticed areas of error, such as air conditioning running in the gym every weekend,” Indukuri said. The students then talked about how they applied for an ACE grant to install smart meters, among other measures, on the Saratoga campus that would track energy uses and help identify areas where it could improve. Their solutions combined to save the school approximately $20,000 annually. Furthermore, the students said, they started a program to help get smart meters installed at other schools, even traveling to the White House to meet with Steven Chu, United States energy secretary, to discuss expanding the program nationwide.
Those who missed the live webcast of Indukuri and Lapidous’ speech can view the archived video at the CGI 2011 website. Their appearance with Mike Haas starts at 11 minutes and 56 seconds into the video. Twitter updates were also posted throughout the weekend on Smart Powered’s Twitter page.
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Shreya Indukuri and Daniela Lapidous, both grade 12, will appear at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York City on Tuesday, and will be speaking at a keynote lunch with Mike Haas, founder of the Alliance for Climate Education. A live webcast of the event will start at noon Eastern time (9 a.m. Pacific) on Tuesday.
The students will also be interviewed by “Time” magazine’s Bryan Walsh, and have been attending other related events in the city for climate science week. They are posting updates through Smart Powered’s Twitter page with the hashtag #CGI2011.