The Bromfield Green Team, made up of about a dozen students, will be collecting data on energy consumption in Harvard’s school buildings this heating season. Bromfield senior Sofia Catalina told the School Committee that the Green Team has already surveyed teachers about room temperatures and energy use.
In response to the Green Team’s survey, only 39 percent of teachers report that their rooms are a comfortable temperature. Another 25 percent said the rooms were overheated, while the rest said they were underheated. More than a third of teachers said they sometimes had to open windows during the winter to make their rooms comfortable.
For the past several weeks the students have been installing 80 temperature monitoring devices (lent free by the Cadmus Group of Waltham) in classrooms and the school library. The devices will provide objective data about room temperatures and humidity, which the team plans to transfer to a spreadsheet. The data will allow students to create a map of hot, cold, and comfortable areas.
Catalina said the group’s goal is to reduce energy use and at the same time make school rooms more comfortable. The Harvard Energy Advisory Committee is working with the students. Catalina herself plans to study environmental engineering when she reaches college.
