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Utah Energy Wise Communities

Hello Ogden Community Member!

We need your help to shape Ogden City’s energy future. You are invited to an upcoming meeting for the Utah Energy Wise Communities project, where community members can help select the strategies to cut energy waste and reduce pollution in Ogden. Two public meetings will be held at the Weber Main Library (2464 Jefferson Ave., Ogden) to gather comments from the community:

· Thursday January 23th, from 6:30pm to 8pm

· Tuesday, February 4, from 6:30pm to 8pm

What is the Utah Energy Wise Communities project? 

The Utah Energy Wise Communities project is a U.S. Department of Energy-funded initiative being implemented by the Utah Governor’s Office of Energy Development and a number of local partners. Ogden City is the very first community in Utah to participate in Utah Energy Wise Communities, which will result in local energy savings goals and a comprehensive implementation plan to reduce energy waste, lower energy bills and cut pollution.

The project has been guided by a local steering committee that includes city council members, Ogden city employees, residents, business owners and utility representatives. With input from local community members like you, this group recently selected energy savings goals for our community. Now, we need to select strategies to achieve the goals and we need your input! 

Please join us on either Thursday, January 23rd, or Tuesday, February 4th, at 6:30 pm at the Weber Main Library to help shape Ogden’s energy-saving implementation plan. By attending one of these meetings, you can help make sure the implementation plan includes the energy-saving strategies that you think are most impactful and the best fit for Ogden.

Hope to see you there!

91¶ÌÊÓƵ Students Engage Junior High Students in the Science of Climate Change

Marianely Garcia and Ivonne Camas, students in Dr. Groves’s course The Science of Climate Change (Geography 1500), chose the option to engage with their community for their signature assignment. Both students were interested in the field of education and had discussed the lack of climate change lessons in their high school or middle school years. The signature assignment required that students incorporate climate change into topics within the Utah state standards for a grade that they wanted to teach and present it to a local school. 

After researching the topics covered in 8th grade, Marianely and Ivonne designed a brief lesson on the earth’s energy budget, its imbalance due to the inclusion of anthropogenic greenhouse gasses, weather vs. climate and photosynthesis. The two students contacted Mrs. Turnball at Ogden Junior High, who was happy to have them come and teach the lesson. After they presented the lesson to two of Mrs. Turnball’s classes, they reported high student engagement. “Students kept raising their hands and asking questions and really tried to understand what was being presented,” they wrote. The class finished the period by playing a game of Kahoot, an online interactive quiz to assess the class’s knowledge. They found that the students had indeed done well in their understanding of the topic. 

The Weber State students felt proud to have reached out to the community and to have shared what they had learned in Geography 1500. Mrs. Turnball also plans to use the Powerpoint presentation yearly to continue educating students on the science of climate change.