Halls and classrooms were faintly illuminated throughout Iola Middle School Friday in concession to Earth Day’s worldwide effort to reduce energy consumption. Other USD 257 schools also participated.
Earth Day will be recognized all over the Earth at 8:30 local time tonight when more than 1 billion people are expected to turn off lights for an hour.
A ceremony organized by Abby Works, Iola High School junior, will occur in downtown Iola then. She has gone about town in recent weeks encouraging participation by local retailers and businesses. Lights also will be doused in public buildings.
The formal ceremony, “Don’t be Afraid of the Dark,” will include the lighting of 60 luminaries by area Boy Scouts. Guitarists Tyler and Kyle Shelby will performed “unplugged.” Glow-in-the-dark Frisbees and necklaces will be handed out and walkers, equipped with flashlights, will circle the square.
This morning, starting at 9 o’clock, electronic waste — cell phones, computers, fans, etc. — is being collected at the Recreation Community Building in Riverside Park. The collection is a project of the IHS Gifted Explorations class and donations will be accepted to help to pay for transport of the waste to an EPA-approved processing site.
“We’ve turned off every light we could and will unplug computers, printers and other things the last hour of the day,” said Jack Stanley, principal of IMS, early Friday afternoon.
He noted teachers and staff were depending on natural light where it was available and low-intensity lamps were used in interior classrooms.
Middle School students embraced the project. Many wore black or dark clothing as personal recognition of the World Wildlife Fund global event.
Earth Hour started in 2007 and grew to include more than 50 million people in its second year. By last year participation was estimated at 1 billion people, or about one-seventh of all humans on the planet.
Lights dimmed for Earth Hour
