awareness

Let the games begin!

Every fall, the East Campus dorms at Duke University partake in a month-long waste, water, and energy reduction competition. Students earn points for their residence hall and prizes for themselves by doing their part to reduce their ecological footprints and to become educated about the environment. Here are the highlights:

Recycling Rate- Residence halls with fewer amounts of recyclable materials in their trash bags (on an unannounced day during the competition) score higher.

Energy Reduction- The greater the dorms reduce electricity usage below their per capita (based on historical consumption data), the more points they receive.

Online Impact Survey- Residence halls are scored according to the percentage of residents that finish a survey, thereby helping the university assess the level of environmental literacy of the freshmen class.

In the past few years, a few events have brought more attention to animal rights. These incidents range from the abandonment of pets during Hurricane Katrina and widespread pet food contamination to Michael Vick’s dog-fighting and Oprah’s recent show about puppy mills.