Next Generation of Cheap Solar Cells

New technology uses cheaper materials instead of expensive silicon crystals. These new solar cells are projected to cost 1/10th of what the more expensive silicon cells cost.

Green Building Revolution

Buildings are responsible for roughly 30% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. This is changing, though, through the sustainability movement. Sustainability means meeting our own needs today without compromising the capacity for future generations to meet their's. Green architecture is poised to make the most significant contributions to energy reduction and efficiency. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. It is the rating system used to gauge efficiency.

Things You Can Do

"Things You Can Do" is a massive social campaign that is first of its kind — a project that is entirely initiated by youth for youth. The campaign is organized by Raffles One Earth (the environmental club of Raffles Junior College) and mentored by the Environmental Challenge Organisation (Singapore), also known as ECO Singapore.

The campaign focuses on identifying the "7 Easy Green Habits", out of the thousands of them you can find online, that youth can start doing in school or at home for a start to lead a greener lifestyle.

7 Easy Green Habits

1. Taking public transport
2. Using refillable stationery
3. Rejecting and reusing plastic bags
4. Turning off electrical appliances completely off instead of standby mode
5. Recycling paper
6. Cutting down the use of water heaters
7. Changing from air-con to fan, or setting the air-con temperature at 25 degrees or above.

Habits or practices that are circulated in the press are often not targeted at youth (e.g. buying a hybrid car), and hence would not be able to attract youth. Through the school talks and self-designed posters (which we believe are more engaging to youth than the boring old posters), the campaign hopes to reach out to youth more effectively.

Phase One

Over 30 schools hosted campaign speakers (18-year-old RJC students), who talked to audience members aged between 12 and 17 years old on environmental issues. Speakers interacted with audience members through a youth-orientated manner that promised to engage the audience better.

The highlight of the talks was the "7 Easy Green Habits" — lifestyle practices that are easy to be adopted by youth. By introducing these Green Habits, the campaign hoped that the tens of thousands of youth who participated in the talks would be agents of change by living green.

Phase Two

Volunteers headed down to the schools to carry out the evaluation of the students there and also find out the effectiveness of the school talks and posters, and whether the campaign was effective in influencing the mindsets of young people. The report of the study was presented to NGOs, like ECO Singapore, and governmental bodies, such as the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources and the National Environment Agency.

Finale

The final phase of the campaign was a conference titled "Conversation for Conservation". By bringing youth environmental leaders from various schools nation-wide, the conference hoped to serve as a platform for networking and collaboration between these youth leaders so that larger and more meaningful environmental projects could be developed and initiated.