Girl Scouts Rock Energy Savings
I remember back in summer 2010, almost exactly six years ago, contributing ideas to a brainstorm for specific actions girl scouts could take to reduce their energy use. We were beginning to design a study that would be a follow up to one of my collaborative dissertation studies: a curriculum for energy-saving behavior change in high schools.
I’m excited to report that the GLEE (Girls Learning Environment and Energy) study has been published and is collecting accolades.
The study is a rigorous experiment that investigates whether a social cognitive theory-based intervention (in this case, an energy conservation course with five modules) changes the energy-saving behaviors of girl scouts, whether the girls influence their parents to also change their behavior, and whether these changes persist over time (a median of almost 8 months).
Results indicate that the intervention does change behavior, with 49% increased energy savings behaviors by the girl scouts, and through them, another 12% by their parents. This is very promising for future interventions, especially as the behavior change is directly caused by the intervention, and girl scouts form a large subset of the U.S. population with high penetration into households.
If you’re interested to look at the intervention materials, you can request them from lead author Hilary Boudet.
Now, if only the girl scouts could sell healthier cookies (my wish list: vegan, gluten-free, sugarless, and free of high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils). Healthy cookies will empower them to spread wellness across the country, and boost the food-related energy-saving behaviors in this and future studies.
Then they could address climate change and wellness challenges together, as we practice at Alchemus Prime – yeah!
A recent study by Stanford and other colleagues indicates that girl scouts can significantly save energy in the residential sector, including electricity use, and food and transportation behaviors. Now if only they sold healthier cookies like this vegan option I made without sugar for my dad a few years ago.