Cabot Case Study: A deep impact on the culture of energy use
Located about 20 miles northeast of Montpelier, on the edge of the Northeast Kingdom, Cabot, Vermont is a rural farming community best known for the collective of dairy farms that share its name. The Cabot School sits close by the town green and is a center of community life. For a decade now, the Vermont Energy Education Program (VEEP) has worked with the teachers and students of the Cabot School to bring energy literacy into the classroom, with some remarkable results. As one teacher put it, the partnership has "deeply influenced the culture of energy use here at the school, as well as in the town."
This partnership has been led by Charlie Wanzer, a high school Physics teacher who was the first at Cabot to bring VEEP into his classroom. "This is the best energy literacy program I know of at the middle and high school level," says Charlie, because "the applied nature of VEEP's program fills a critical gap."
Partner since: 2001
Number of students served: 500+
Energy Savings Gained: 10%
reduction in school electricity use
Teacher Champions: Charlie Wanzer,
Mike Crocker, Peter Stratman
Over the years, Charlie has worked with VEEP to engage students in energy, through hands-on projects. Cabot classes have build solar concentrators, created CO2 balloons the size of tractor trailers, replaced incandescent light-bulbs with compact fluorescents (CFLs), and weatherized houses for local farmers. Peter Strathan, a teacher in the middle school, also has a passion for energy literacy and works with VEEP to get his students engaged in hands-on projects.
VEEP provides materials, curriculum + training, and in-class workshops, helping Cabot’s teachers unlock the mysteries of energy and science. Core VEEP programs, such as the Electricity and the Environment presentation, have formed the foundation for more in-depth projects. Two Green Schools programs have resulted in lighting retrofits that have reduced the schools annual electricity usage by 10% per year since 2003. More importantly, ten years worth of Cabot students have had the opportunity to get engaged with energy and take leadership by promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy in their communities.
