School leaves itself in dark
A conservation measure - dubbed "Just Flick It" by students who hope turning off classroom lights on Fridays catches on across the country - started March 14 at Riverside Meadows Intermediate School in Plumas Lake.
"It may start with one little school," eighth-grader Celine White said. "But it could influence the whole world."
The idea to turn off the fluorescent lights in classrooms and rely on sunlight through windows started seven days ago when White and others met to plan for student government events.
Kyle Grant, 34, a history and social sciences teacher who said he's "not a big tree-hugger" and doesn't drive a hybrid, has for years turned off lights in his classrooms to save energy and said he hasn't heard a single student complain.
Students at Riverside Meadows, with an enrollment of about 400 in grades 5-8, said they were interested in extending that effort to other classrooms every Friday, the teacher recounted.
"We'll see how it works," Grant said. "We just wanted to try it."
Lights out in his Plumas Lake classroom don't pose an illumination problem, he said.
"We have a wall of windows, so it's not such a big deal," the teacher said. "It's not dark."
Several other instructors at Riverside Meadows in the Plumas Lake school district have agreed to join "Just Flick it" Fridays, Grant said.
Pacific Gas & Electric representative Paul Moreno said it costs about $1.40 an hour to light each classroom at Riverside Meadows, which opened two years ago. Lights-out Fridays reduce energy demands, as well as electrical use, he noted.
"The lesson being demonstrated here," Moreno said, "is making efforts to conserve energy can pay off not only in cost savings, but in the environmental impact."
Students in Grant's classes watched Al Gore's 2006 global warming movie "An Inconvenient Truth" in December, but eighthgrader White said the film didn't inspire the "Just Flick It" Fridays movement.
Turning off the lights saves money and energy use, White said, and is a conservation measure that makes sense. A flier announcing the lightsout effort at the school reads, "All you have to do is open your blinds and you help the district and the state save money."
Grant said that "An Inconvenient Truth" and its account of the sources and dangers of global warming didn't get a thumbs-up review from everyone.
"I had a couple of parents say, ‘We don't believe that's true,'" he recounted.
Grant said he isn't necessarily saying that Gore's movie got it right, but that the environmental concerns the film raises are issues that warrant discussion.
George Parker, director of facilities for the Yuba City Unified School District and a member of the California Green Schools Summit Advisory Board, praised "Just Flick It" Fridays.
"Our children are actually telling us a message about conservation that we need to be hearing," Parker said. "This is an exceptional way to get the message out about conservation."
Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Ryan McCarthy at 749-4707 or rmccarthy@appeal-democrat.com.
