Big Green Bus Visits Under The Arches
By Evan
Leon
Editor’s Note: One of
our Discovery Corps interns, Evan Leon is back with us this
summer and filed the following story.
Pacific Science Center
had a very special visitor this summer. The Big Green Bus
rolled into our Denny Way entrance and opened its
eco-friendly doors to the people of downtown Seattle and
patrons of Pacific Science Center alike. The Science Center
was the 29th stop on the bus's 42-stop 2008 summer tour
around the U.S. At every stop, the bus and the earth-loving
undergraduates who accompany it teach visitors (at no
charge) about alternative fuels and how to live more
sustainably at home.
To get more
information, I went to the bus and had a chat with one of
the students, a sophomore named Alice Bradley. They give
you information about how you can live sustainably. To show
that this is not only possible, but can be quite
comfortable, they use only the pure power of solar energy
to run all the electronics on their bus(including an LCD
screen, which uses less power than a plasma screen of equal
size). The students teach people with cool facts and
interesting displays, such as two fluorescent and two
incandescent bulbs placed next to each other and turned on,
showing that both bulbs burn equally bright, even though
the fluorescent bulb is using less energy.
When asked why they
chose to drive across the U.S. to spread the green message,
Alice replied that it's just exciting to travel all across
the country, and it's a great way to get people's
attention. "When a Big Green Bus rolls into town, people
get interested," Alice said. "Our goal on the road is to
get people thinking about how they use energy and what we
as a country can do to change."
If you missed the bus this summer, don't worry! They plan
to rev up the grease-powered engine again next year for
another eco-friendly tour.
For more information, check →
thebiggreenbus.org
