Winners of Energy Challenge Announced

This year's winners of the Igniting Creative Energy Challenge were announced last month. The challenge is an educational competition sponsored and funded through a grant by Johnson Controls, Inc., Milwaukee, Wis., with additional support from Philips Lighting and the United States Energy Assoc. (USEA). It is administered by the National Energy Foundation (NEF).

The winners—three students and a teacher—receive a hosted trip to Hawaii in April, as well as the opportunity to participate in the Energy Efficiency Forum in Washington, D.C., on June 12 and 13, where they will share their entries and ideas with government and energy leaders.

This year's national winners include the following:

Elementary Division: Stacy Nicole Wade, 5th grader from Silver Lake Unified School District 372 in Kansas, submitted a scrapbook titled, “Recipes for Recycling” in which she chronicles her efforts to recycle metal and mulch to save the environment and earn money for college. Stacy has recycled over 5,700 lbs. of metal. She also creates mulch from grass clippings and leaves, which she then delivers throughout the neighborhood.

Middle School Division: Emily Wang, 6th grade student at Granite School District in Utah, authored and illustrated a children's book titled “Stacy the Energy Hog.” The book's heroine sees first hand the importance of energy conservation and grows up to become an environmentalist who helps other people save energy. Emily is a member of her class's problem solving committee, PINK (Pollution is Not Kool), which distributes compact fluorescent light bulbs and recycled plastic bags.

High School Division: Stephanie Vinson, 12th grader from San Diego Unified School District in California, sculpted an earthen-media fountain that depicts a world being held up by the actions of people who conserve energy and recycle. She inscribed the base with almost 100 ways that individuals can support the environment.

Teacher Division: Angel Kamara, math teacher at Lakeside High School in the Columbia County School District in Georgia, had the highest average score of her top 15 qualified student entries. Projects from her students ranged from stories, comics and websites. One website entry was captured worldwide and referenced by other individual's projects submitted from around the United States.

The winning entries for 2007 will be posted at www.ignitingcreativeenergy.org.

“Johnson Controls is proud to sponsor a program that focuses student energy on one of the great challenges of our time: conserving energy and improving our environment,” said C. David Myers, president of the building efficiency business at Johnson Controls. “We congratulate the winners on their great work.”