Lillian Kalish
Staff Writer

In the upcoming months, Team Marine will be encouraging Samo classes to participate in the Biggest Loser competition—a nationwide in-school challenge sponsored by the Alliance for Climate Education (ACE)—to see which school can reduce the most energy in classrooms.

“We have been collaborating with ACE for almost a year,” Team Marine member Patricio Guerrero said. “A representative from ACE, Kristina Von Hoffman, comes in on a regular basis and she told us about the project.”

The Biggest Loser competition began Nov.4 and will run through Dec. 9. Team Marine needs a minimum of five classes to participate, although Guerrero says that more would be ideal. The teacher of the class that reduces the most energy will be rewarded free breakfast for a week. If Team Marine beats its competitors across the nation, they will receive a grant of $1000, most of which will go to their QuikSCience projects.

From this competition, Team Marine members hope to raise funds for their QuikSCience Challenge project. The QuikSCience Challenge is a competition for middle and high school students that involves creating a project dealing with environmental sustainability. In Team Marine’s case, they have split their work up into two teams: Team Car and the Bag Ban Team. Team Car, composed of seven students, is working to convert agasoline car into an electric one. The project itself will be entered in February of 2012.

“I think it’s a good idea to get teachers involved and to understand our energy consumption,” Guerrero said. “This project goes along with our concentration: saving the environment and reducing our carbon footprint.”

lkalish@thesamohi.com