By Ashley Connors, PLU Sustainability
During October, Neil Wagner, Aiko Nakagawa, and I conducted a study on energy consumption through the annual program UnPLUg. The data collection phase of our research is now complete.
Depending on the residence hall in which you live and where you usually spend your time on campus, you could have seen one of our advertisements. The advertisements came in the forms of flyers, pledges, colored tape by door handles and light switches, surveys and the Sweater Swap hosted by Resident Hall Association and the Sustainability Office in October.
You may also have participated in one of these if Neil, Ashley, or I directly asked you to participate. We hoped the ads would help reduce energy use in the residence halls, and we wanted to see the effect of different types of reminders on energy usage.
A big thank you goes out to all of our volunteers and to the grant from Independent Colleges of Washington, funded by Puget Sound Energy.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email our lead researcher, Aiko Nakagawa, at nakagata@plu.edu, her adviser Dr. Chris Hansvick at hansvick@plu.edu, or the Human Participant Review Board at hprb@plu.edu. You are also invited to PLU’s Psychology Conference Dec. 11 from 4-6 p.m. where Aiko Nakagawa will present the results of this study.
In addition, be on the look out for a follow up to this article, which will highlight the primary findings of our research.
