About 20 Farnsworth Middle School students recently toured Orion Energy Systems' Manitowoc manufacturing facility to learn about efficiency and how they can help improve the environment through decreased energy consumption.
The seventh-grade students are members of the school's Light Busters club, formed to teach students to be conscious of their - and their peers' and teachers' - energy use, according to adviser and seventh-grade science teacher Jeff Kainz.
"The ultimate goal is to have the kids learn more about energy and the environment they live in," Kainz said. "We want them to become stewards of the environment by trying to eliminate wasted energy."
Students in the Light Busters club are encouraged to turn off lights in unoccupied rooms at Farnsworth. The measure reduces energy consumption, costs to the school district and helps keep greenhouse gases from the entering the atmosphere.
If the lights are turned off, electricity won't be consumed and is never generated, meaning the harmful greenhouse gases associated with its creation won't be released into the atmosphere.
Orion, a leading power technology company that designs, manufactures and deploys energy management systems in commercial and industrial facilities throughout North America.
"We thought the trip to Orion would help show the students their efforts are worthy and that energy efficiency goes far beyond the classroom," Kainz said. "Orion is helping prove to the kids that energy efficiency is important for the future of our planet."
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The students saw the manufacturing process for Orion's high-intensity fluorescent lighting platform, which provides about 50 percent more light at about half the cost of traditional high-intensity discharge lighting systems found in many commercial, industrial and warehouse facilities.