Have you ever needed to open your classroom windows on a cold winter’s day to beat the classroom heat? Are lights left on in your school cafeteria long after lunch hour is over? Are people in your school constantly forgetting to turn off computers?

If any of these scenarios sound familiar to you, get your class ready for the HOBO Energy Challenge, a new contest program for K-12 teachers and students sponsored by iScienceProject.

The free contest, which runs until May 1, 2005, 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: use data loggers to find examples of energy waste in your school.

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.

For more information on the HOBO Energy Challenge, or to sign up, visit http://www.iscienceproject.com/energy_challenge/energy_challenge.html.

The deadline for contest entries is April 30, 2005.