If you have ventured into the high school gym lobby this year you might have noticed a TV just above the window of the snack shop. According to a poll that we, as Sightline, sent out, over 60 percent of respondents said yes, or maybe, about wanting to learn what the purpose was about and a similar number of people said they would be interested in knowing our school’s energy consumption and generation.
This graph shows that our student body doesn’t know much about what this ‘mysterious’ TV is displaying. I sat down and talked with Brent Miller to get a sense of the purpose behind the TV. He states that the TV is to be used as an “educational reference for the consumption and generation of energy,” here at Bethany Christian Schools. Although there is sometimes an error message on the screen, the graphs show how much energy is being used and produced by different areas of the school.
As a general rule, red is what we are consuming and green is what we are producing. Currently, we consume more than we produce through solar and wind but Brent assures that once the new solar panels are on and working that that gap should decrease so that the majority of our energy will be from our own sources. The blue graph that you might see on the TV is an overall meter of how much is used vs. consumed. There is a black mark on the scale and when the arrow is to the left of that we are relying on all our own power and selling some back to NIBSCO, our other energy provider.
At the end of the poll, there is a question about what you would put on the screen if you had a choice. We received a hint at what student’s here at school really care about. Bethany news and announcements were something almost all students said they would like on the TV. The next biggest choice made us at Sightline feel warm inside as it was Sightline Movies that people wanted on the TV. More entries included Nickelodeon, Disney, and “Cartoon Network all the way dude.” Although energy is an important part of our school’s reputation it isn’t necessarily the focus for all our students.