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Team Information & Blog
Pledge for the Polar Bears
Adult Advisor
Marcelle Gianelloni
Team Members
Emily Goldstein (age:17)
Brandie Farkas (age:16)
Project Outline
Our team has made a pledge to help stop climate change, by focusing on the plight of the polar bears and species found in the arctic ecosystem. Our plan is to create a campaign to get people in the Kentucky and Southern Indiana area to power down, by getting pledges for personal reductions in CO2 emissions.
We will give people five options to choose from, listing different ways they can reduce their CO2 emissions. We will have the specific amounts of CO2 emissions saved per year listed so they can see what they are contributing. The options we are considering are:
1. A pledge to reduce showering time 5 minutes – this will save 300 lbs. per person per year
2. Switching to cold water for washing clothes – 2 loads per week will save 200 lbs. per house per year
3. Unplugging all electronics when not in use – this will save 600 lbs. per year
4. Lowering the speed you drive at to 55 mph (which could improve CO2 emissions by 30% - we are still working on how to calculate the exact numbers on this).
5. Lowering your thermostat in the winter and raising it in the summer (we are working with our local energy provider on how to calculate these numbers)
We will spread the word about our pledge campaign by doing the following:
1. Design a web page on the Louisville Zoo’s website, urging people to sign up and make their pledges. The webpage will have information on climate change, possibly with interactive activities, and what they can do to help save the polar bears.
2. Write a letter urging kids to go on the webpage and make a pledge. This letter will be in the Louisville Zoo’s “Backyard Action Heroes” booklet that will be distributed to 300,000 kids around the Kentucky and Southern Indiana area. (This program teaches kids how to be action heroes starting in their own backyard. It focuses on nature and the environment and what can be done to preserve them.)
3. Our team will be Backyard Action Heroes as we spread the word about the pledge campaign. We will do this by:
A. Giving talks to zoo camps
B. Setting up a table at zoo events this summer and fall
C. Working with our local school system on how to let students know about the program
D. Working with Kentucky and Southern Indiana scout troops
E. Sending the web page address to zoo members via the zoo’s e-newsletter
F. Sending word about the webpage across the internet
We will keep a running tally of the pledges to show the impact we are making. In December, one of the team members will be taking the pledges to House and Senate leaders in Washington, D.C. In addition, we will keep the campaign as paperless as possible.
300,000 Pounds and Counting
Aug 11, 2008
We have been very busy since our last blog. We have set up a table every week at the Louisville Zoo - sometimes twice - and have already gotten pledges for 300,000 pounds of CO2 emissions to be reduced. And this is just a small amount compared to what we'll get when our website gets up and running. Yay! Emily continues to give talks to the eco-campers at the zoo about the plight of the polar bears and our upcoming website. The kids ask lots of questions, so many that the time always runs over! It's amazing how interested and knowledgeable they already are.
Us (Brandie, Emily) at our booth at the Louisville Zoo.
A writer is doing an article for Aquila Magazine in England about polar bears, and it will feature our project. It will even have a link to our upcoming website! He came to watch the last talk we gave and took lots of pictures.
The webiste is close to completion, and will be done in 3 weeks. Then our work will really begin - our big event is coming! We'll be featured at the Louisville Zoo's Backyard Action Heroes event on September 13th, telling everyone about our project and trying to get pledges. We are also plotting our strategy for getting large companies in the area to make group pledges for reductions in CO2 emissions. We're ready for a challenge! Here we come, Louisville!
Getting the Word Out
Jul 30, 2008
Things have been going well with our pledge. We have been really busy trying to engineer how we will spread the word about our new website and our pledge. We have contacted several large organizations, including:
1. The Girl Scouts of Kentuckiana - they will be putting an article about our site in their newsletter and on their website, urging scouts to take the pledge.
2. Operation Brightside - they will be doing an article on our site and the pledge.
3. Partnership for a Green City - which is a group of pro-environmentalists from the city's largest employers, including the City of Louisville, the University of Louisville, and the Jefferson County Public School System. We will be discussing our project with them in August and will see if there is a way to let these three large groups know about the website and the pledge.
We set up another booth at the Louisville Zoo today and got more pledges - even though it rained the whole time! We will continue to put up our booth at the zoo, and once we get our website up and running in September, we will enter the pledges we already have.
We will also continue to contact other groups to see if they will help us spread the word about the pledge.
September 1st is D-Day! We are so excited!
Ursa and Mari
Jul 19, 2008
We have been busy here in Louisville getting ready for our pledge campaign. The website will officially be up and running on Sept. 1st, so we are gearing up for a lot of hard work once it is ready.
Emily gave another talk to an eco-camp at the Louisville Zoo about climate change and the pledge. We both will be setting up a table at the zoo starting next week to get the pledge started, and we will be entering the pledges we get on paper onto the website once it is up. and, of course, all paper used is 100% recycled!
To make our booth more noticeable and interesting, we built an 8-foot polar bear and her cub. We had an unpleasant time getting the 8 foot by 4 foot piece of foam core poster board home - we strapped it on top of a Toyota and drove home going 20 mph! After sketching the mom and baby bears, we cut them out, and sprayed a fixative on them making them waterproof. Then we had to get them to the zoo!
Their names are officially Ursa and Mari - after their Latin names, Ursus maritimus.
We hope to have saved a lot of carbon emissions by our next blog!
Making Progress
Jul 08, 2008
Greetings from Louisville! We are hot and heavy into our plans. We have been working on our project from two angles: getting the numbers ready for our pledge, and writing our website where people will make the pledge.
Here are the choices people will have to choose from when they make their pledge:
1. Turn down the thermostat 2 degrees when heating your house, and turn up the thermostat 2 degrees when cooling your house. This saves 100 pounds of carbon emissions per week.
2. Switch off computer and electronics when not in use. This saves 400 pounds of carbon emissions per year.
3. Replace 5 of your most used 75-watt incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent bulbs. This will save 500 pounds of carbon emissions per year.
4. Wash two loads of laundry per week in cold water instead of hot water. This saves 600 pounds of carbon emissions per year.
5. Reduce your driving speed to 55 miles per hour on the highway. This will save 1,000 pounds of carbon emissions per year.
We worked with the EPA (the Environmental Protection Agency), the U.S. Dept. of Energy, and the Energy Information Administration on getting the CO2 emission numbers together. While we found these numbers on their websites and from other sources, we felt it was important for us to undertand how the numbers were arrived at, and to be able to do the calculations ourselves.
Per the Dept. of Energy, the average amount of CO2 emissions per kilowatt hour is 1.34 pounds. To find the carbon emissions saved by each of these actions we multiplied the average kilowatt hours by 1.34. The Energy Information Administration, the EPA, and our local energy provider had info on the average amounts of kilowatt hours used for each activity.
To find the amount of carbon emissions saved by driving 55 mph on the highway, we performed the following calculations:
Per the EPA, the average gas mileage per vehicle is 19.7 mpg. The average miles driven is 11,856 per year. we divided 11,856 by 19.7 to get the average number of gallons of gas used, which is 601.8. Per the Dept. of Energy, drving 55 mph saves 20% on gas mileage. 20% of 19.7 is 3.94, which gives you an improved gas mileage of 23.6 mpg. This would save approximately 100 gallons of gas per year. Per the Dept. of Energy, 50% of miles driven are driven on the highway. Per the Energy Information Administration, each gallon used emits 19.564 pounds of carbon emissions. So - 50 gallons times 19.564 is 978.2, and we approximated this number to 1,000 pounds of carbon saved when driving 55 mph instead of 75 mph.
We have also been writing our website. Pages on our site will include:
- The main page
- The actual pledge where people pledge to reduce carbon emissions
- What is climate change?
- Learn more about polar bears
- A polar bear quiz
- A quiz on climate change
- What else can I do to help stop climate change?
- Misconceptions about climate change
- Links to more information
- A picture gallery
- A link to the Ice Age Video
- A link to Emily's blogs from the 2007 Teen Leadership camp in Churchill
We will be editing and adding to the website in the next week or two. Our plan is to have the website up and running by September 1st, when we will start getting pledges.
Until our next blog, big bear hugs and kisses!
Emily and Brandie
Another Update
Jun 19, 2008
Yesterday we had a meeting with our advisor, Marcelle Gianelloni, Education Curator at the Louisville Zoo. Also at the meeting were Robert Kemnitz, Graphics Specialist/Webmaster, and Doug McCoy, Assistant Education Curator of the zoo. We were given the seal of approval on our pledge options, and we discussed the details of our upcoming "Pledge for the Polar Bears" website. It's going to be great!
After the meeting, I (Emily) gave a talk about my trip to Churchill and climate change to the Eco-camps at the zoo. I told the campers about our upcoming pledge and that they should look for their "Backyard Action Heroes" booklet that will be delivered to them at school in September. Brandie took this picture of me while I was giving my talk.
Working on the Numbers
Jun 08, 2008
This has been a very mind-boggling week for us. We have been hot and heavy into finding the numbers we need to do our project. Groups that we have been talking to include the Environmental Protection Agency, Conservation International, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Energy Information Administration. We talked to countless people, and finally have the formulas we need to calculate the CO2 emissions that will be saved by our project. It's a good thing we make A's in math!
We also wrote the letter that will be sent out to 300,000 kids in the Louisville Zoo's Backyard Action Heroes booklet, and we started doing research for creating our webpage. Our goal is to have the webpage planned out by the end of June.
We are motivated and encouraged by the recent adoption of polar bears on the threatened species list. The details in this action might not be ideal, but at least it is a step in the right direction.
Big bear hugs from Kentucky!
Pledge For the Polar Bears Introduction
Jun 03, 2008
Greetings from Kentucky!
We want to introduce ourselves. We are Emily Goldstein, a senior from Atherton High School, and Brandie Farkas, a senior from Ballard High School. We are both volunteers at the Louisville Zoo, and are both on the Youth Board there. We are excited to be launching our project to help save the environment - Pledge For the Polar Bears.
We've been busy since we entered our project. We had a planning session in the ideal place - in front of the Polar Bear exhibit at the Louisville Zoo! Aquila (the bear) helped us make our plans. We are working with the Louisville Zoo in getting the word out about our pledge. We have been in contact with several organizations to help us calculate CO2 emissions, and we are working on our form that people will use to make their pledge.
Team Pledge for the Polar Bears is excited to be a part of this amazing project, and we look forward to making a difference in our community - and ultimately, the world.