Energy Conservation Project Overview

For my energy conservation project, I'm going to research the amount of plastic bags my wife and I generate weekly and how many bags we contribute to the Anchorage landfill each week. We are already avid recyclers in Anchorage - No. 1 and No. 2 plastics, newspapers, tin cans and mixed paper.

I believe, however, throwing away good plastic bags is a habit I can break to cut down on the waste. Some questions and facts I will be researching are:

• How much money will I save by reusing sandwich and freezer bags? Will it make a dent in my budget?
• Reusablebags.com, an all-you-need-to-know Web site on how to reduce your impact, resuse what you've got and recycle your plastic. It's message is using the four R's: reduce, reuse, recycle and react. It's a user-friendly Web site and I'm looking forward to researching it.
• I will keep a daily log on what I did to reduce and reuse (sandwich bags, freezer bags).
• I will tally each plastic bag and compare it to the amount of plastic bags an average person uses in a week.

AnthroTech Assignment

The abundant opportunities for using technology at Goldenview Middle School is what makes it a special place to get an education in the Anchorage School District. Though cell phone use isn't allowed during school hours, students are inundated with technology on a daily basis.

The most obvious is the computer. Each pod has at least at dozen of them - some have many, many more. Some pods have expensive iMacs that teachers raised money to purchase, while other pods have slow Dells that should be replaced.

Each classroom has a Promethean Board, which were installed in every classroom at the beginning of the school year. These boards are like SmartBoards on steroids. Only a few teachers I observed have barely tapped into the Promethean Board's true potential. The majority have included the board into their daily routines.

I asked one of the school's technology leaders if Goldenview - located in an affluent neighborhood of Anchorage - receives so much of "the good stuff" because of economic status. The simple answer was no. Economic status plays only one part. Many Goldenview teachers are technology advocates. They want it so they work hard at trying to get it. They write grants, ask for donations and make technology a huge part of the school culture.

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