Energy-awareness contest starts in schools

iScienceProject, a maker of portable data loggers for K-12 science education, announces the second annual HOBO Energy Challenge, a free, company-sponsored contest for K-12 classrooms.

The free contest is designed to promote energy awareness within schools while offering students of all ages a fun, hands-on science learning experience with HOBO® data loggers.

A data logger is a simple to use, portable electronic recording device that can be set up in minutes to monitor light usage, room temperature and relative humidity. Accompanying software turns the energy usage data into colorful, time-stamped graphs that indicate, for example, when lights were on/off and what room temperatures were during the night.

The mission of the contest is to use data loggers to find examples of energy waste in schools. Participating classrooms will receive a free HOBO Loaner Package that includes everything needed to start investigating energy usage: a HOBO data logger, software, and energy-saving contest activities.

Classrooms that investigate and document at least one example of energy waste win a complete HOBO data logger system ($200 value). An entire classroom set of HOBO data loggers ($1000 value) will be awarded to elementary, middle and high-school classrooms that make the greatest effort to investigate energy waste.

"Last year's HOBO Energy Challenge was a huge success," said Rich Marvin, education program manager for iScienceProject. "More than 350 classrooms across the United States participated, and we loaned out more than $50,000 worth of data logging equipment to teachers and students.

"This year, we're providing another great opportunity for kids to learn science while lowering their school's electric bills, and we hope to see even more schools getting involved."

For more information on the HOBO Energy Challenge, or to sign up, visit www.iscienceproject.com/energy_challenge/energy_challenge.html. Deadline for contest entries is April 30.