University of Wisconsin-River Falls
ER-2: Student Sustainability Outreach Campaign

Residence Hall Energy Contest (Fall 2013):

Recycling Contest (Fall 2012 - from the contest organizer):
For the can collection:
4 collection dates, each Sunday in October. We knocked on every door in the dorm but I would say about 25% of the students participated at some point in time. Most of the participation came from 4th floor male wing as they all drink just a ton of soda. 1st floor gave the least participation. We did a floor vs. floor competition style and the end results were 1(65), 2(119), 3(233), and 4(519) with a grand total of 936 cans collected. At the end of each collection we took the cans out to the recycling dumpster. The prize for winning was a plaque. Our goal was to get the students to participate in recycling efforts. We believed that the can collection was a big success.

Bottle Collection:
The participation was less than the can collection but we believed it was because of the facts we were collecting bottles instead of cans. The bottles were plastic that were recyclable /1\. The time frame for this collection was November and the first 2 weeks of December, due to the Thanksgiving Break and the end of semester. The end results were 1(39), 2(64), 3(101), and 4(227) with a grand total of 431. The bottles also went straight into the recycling dumpster after collection. With the bottles we took off the plastic label wrapping and took the caps off. The plastic wrapping went into the garbage and the bottle caps went along with the bottles into the recycling but remained off. The prize was the same plaque that we agreed was to be a roaming prize for the current competition and 4th floor remained the winners of the plaque.
We have had a few residents who said that we were hoping we can do another can collection drive because they had fun with it but it met some resistance from some people on Hall Council because of the time that the collection consumed. But to meet halfway we decided that whoever won the Sunday meeting "dress up" theme competition would have their recycling taken out for free the next Sunday.

UWRF is in the process of re-designing an energy and water contest pilot and national demonstration project with MAMAC Systems to provide a real-time energy, carbon, and water usage dashboard complete with pre-/post-surveys to assess the degree to which real-time data availability influences students decisions. No known commercially available dashboards currently allow for real-time display due to BACnet data-logging delays and therefore cannot accurately influence real-time decisions.

936 cans collected. Student participation in contest.
431 bottles collected.

Proposal for residence hall energy contest from SCISCD Director, 4/3/13:

Background: With primary cooperation between Residence Life and Facilities Management, UWRF conducted an Energy & Water Conservation competition for three (CHECK THAT #) years (from 2009-2012) among all residence halls. The competition was dropped at the end of 2012 primarily due to questioning of the integrity of data, and the lack of real-time public access to such due to limitations of the current Metasys monitoring and management system.
Besides the co-curricular benefit of exposing students and staff to conscious use of energy and water and their related costs, this tabling of the contest subsequently led to our pending loss of points on the Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System (STARS) report.
In the Summer of 2012, UWRF entertained the donation of MAMAC Systems new Maverick line of data monitoring equipment for energy and water. Independent monitoring systems for both energy and water were installed in Grimm and McMillan Halls. This donation and subsequent conversations have now resulted in this (and pending Maverick installments in other buildings, such as RDI), becoming a national demonstration project.
Real time data is now publicly available in digital form through the web link on the St. Croix Institute for Sustainable Community Development.
http://www.uwrf.edu/Sustain/Residence-Hall-Energy-and-Water-Usage.cfm
MAMAC Systems is also in design phase for real time monitors and dashboard style meters that transform digital to much more visually appealing forms. This demonstration project at MAMAC’s expense is the pilot for moving this system into the national market with significant long term benefit to UWRF, as well as U of MN-Morris where MAMAC is now metering their commercial wind turbines and integrating into a new residence hall design.
Proposal: The UWRF Office of Sustainability (OoS) is requesting the Resident Life consider and approve a pilot energy and water conservation competition between Grimm and McMillan Halls for the Fall and/or Spring of the 2013-14 academic year. This competition would utilize the live / real time data of the MAMAC Maverick Systems that would be available 24/7 by web links, lobby monitors, and remote access platforms (e.g. smartphones). The OoS is happy to share in financial support for competition prizes as deemed appropriate. The OoS would also like to propose a simple pre- and post survey of students in the two halls to assess the degree to which the real time data availability influenced their conscious choices for energy and water resources use during the competition timeline.