• develop personal awareness of reasons to change energy use behaviors and
• determine a personal plan for changing such energy use behaviors

The Iowa Energy Center has funded the project for the 2004-05 and 2005-06 academic years in keeping with their mission to educating the state about energy efficiency.

Philosophy and Guiding Principles

• University students are learning to live in their own residences and are at a critical age in developing lifelong attitudes and behaviors toward energy efficiency and conservation to capture the economic and environmental benefits.
• Research indicates that a gap exists in students' energy education. This project seeks to begin closing that gap in students' energy efficiency education. College students were surveyed in several UNI classes to determine their knowledge of environmental awareness issues and education. Most students surveyed said they learned about recycling in grade school and thought that was the main way to make a difference. They did not have much environmental awareness education in junior or senior high or college. Educating for environmental/energy awareness needs to continue throughout students' school years. It cannot stop with elementary school.
• Community Based Social Marketing concepts from Douglas McKenzie-Mohr are used as a resource. However, this project goes a step further by (1) asking participants to do their own investigations and make their own decisions about the need to reduce energy, and (2) asking participants to develop their own plan of action and ways to change their energy use behaviors.
• These project investigations revealed how students think about nature and environmental questions. Once the research indicates what people are thinking about an issue, one can take a rational approach to educating people about needed changes such as global climate change or energy use. To determine participants' changes in attitudes and behaviors toward energy use, we used the following technique. A pre- and post-survey were given and groups of student volunteers or individual students were interviewed to learn more about students' perceptions of nature and the environment. The findings indicated that people's conceptions of environmental problems often differ from those of scientists. Consequently, careful attention to conceptions is important in communicating with and influencing energy users.

Key Project Elements

• Participant-generated information gathering
• Careful attention to participant conceptions
• Attention to barriers inhibiting environmental friendly behaviors
• Participant-developed plans for overcoming barriers and implementing target behaviors
• Careful attention to the social aspects of college residence hall living

Basic Approach to Educating for Behavior Changes

• The following are the general steps students might be asked to go through to understand why and how to reduce their energy use in their residence hall.

1. Asses energy use (education component) - facilitate self-education of college students to determine how students use energy, how much energy is used and how much is wasted.
2. Determine if there is an energy use problem (problem-solving component) - facilitate college students' ability to come to their own conclusions regarding energy use in dorm rooms and residence hall public areas.
3. Come up with a plan (behavior change component) - facilitate student groups to develop a plan of action to change their behavior and to use energy more efficiently in their rooms, on their residence hall floor and in public areas of the residence hall.
4. Carry out the action plan - take responsibility for your behavior and take action. Facilitate college students groups' ability to monitor and publicize dormitory energy use in kWh.

Who Could Use This Project Plan

• Could be applied to any institution that is a self-contained organization. (For example, university residence halls, apartment buildings, hospital, office building).
• Needs to be an organization where it is physically easy to communicate with all those involved; public spaces are available for posting ideas/announcements; face-to-face communication is possible for problem-solving, planning and implementation; and at least some residents must be willing to spend time on the issue.