THE ROSPECTOR 801 WEST KENSINGTONP ROAD, MOUNT PROSPECT, ILLINOIS 60056 THE VOICE OF PROSPECT HIGH SCHOOL SINCE 1959 VOLUME 59, ISSUE 3 FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2019 DIMINISHING OUR FOOTPRINT larger facilities like Prospect are anyone asks me, I want to be able Efficient lighting helps to reduce asked to participate in “blackout to tell them.” days” and turn off the power of the Slightly discouraged by the building for a few hours of the day. amount of times she sees plas- energy waste, carbon emissions According to Minter, Prospect tic water bottles being thrown participates in these days when into the garbage, Palomo feels ELIZABETH KEANE place of the previous 400 and 250 watt high pressure sodium light they occur — about five times a as though the most effective way Copy Editor bulbs that were being used. year, typically in the summer. to combat this ignorance is by According to Principal Greg As for our heating system, gas spreading awareness of the im- enior Lauren Ellstrand Minter, before they were replaced, is used to heat water that circu- portance of recycling to younger and her friends decided the lights in those areas used to lates through pipes around the generations. Sto go to North Avenue stay on from the morning and into building. Fans then blow this heat Through Environmental Club, Beach on the last day of their ju- the night. Now, the lights have through the vents. This system is Palomo wants to have club mem- nior year. After lounging for two dimmers. switched to “cooling mode” once bers visit the local middle and el- hours and growing bored amongst The locker rooms and academ- the weather starts getting warmer. ementary schools to speak on the the surplus of people at the beach ic bathrooms have occupancy sen- For the cooling system, there subject of conserving the planet, that day, Ellstrand stood up and sors that will shut the lights off are tanks on the roof that produce as well as raise more awareness observed the remains that all of when there is no one in them. ice that is used to chill the water throughout Prospect and the rest those people left behind. Furthermore, any time light- in the pipes. According to Minter, of D214. “There were water bottles, cans ing is replaced in classrooms, it’s this system allows the water to re- “[Environmental Club’s] main and bags of garbage everywhere changed to the more energy-effi- cycle itself effectively. goal is to inspire a young genera- … [my friends and I] got up and cient option; Minter said that he “[Prospect tries] to minimize tion of leaders to be environmen- walked around for an hour, picked would like to see this LED lighting our [energy] usage, and I think we tal stewards not only through ed- up everything and put it in the re- be implemented in all classrooms, do a fairly good job,” Minter said. ucation, but [through] advocacy, cycling bin,” Ellstrand said. “We but the “Things are action and working together on were doing that for like an hour or drawback To read more about the monitored solutions,” Palomo said. two, but it felt like we were doing comes from all the time; Ellstrand is also concerned it for ten minutes.” it being too new Environmental Club, we turn about the amount of food and Ellstrand is the co-president expensive. things off single-use plastic that is wasted of the newly-reinstated Environ- Minter “The Green Team,” go to when we’re in our lunchroom daily. Higdon mental Club. She is leading the also points not using is a big advocate of reusable wa- club alongside junior Sophie Palo- out the fact prospectornow.com them … I ter bottles and using tupperware mo with science teacher Michael that all think we do for lunches in place of these sin- Higdon as the sponsor. The club classrooms and offices have two the best we can.” gle-use plastics. is now making a comeback after light switches in order to give the Environmental Club is more “Try and invest in a bit more it disbanded when science teacher option for teachers to have more focused on the individual impact expensive things like coffee canis- and previous sponsor Mollie Da- dim lighting when only one of the a student or group of students ters, [reusable] water bottles; you vid retired at the end of the 2017-18 switches is flipped. can have by implementing small don’t have to get yourself a Hydro school year. The majority of classrooms changes in their daily lives. Flask — you can just get yourself a While the club plans to focus use T8 41 light bulbs while some Ellstrand, Palomo and Higdon water bottle,” Higdon said. on reducing waste, recycling more of the newer science labs use T6 all agree that education regarding In addition to trying to reduce and spreading awareness about bulbs. According to Acevedo, both what students can and cannot re- plastic-use, Palomo feels that environmental issues, another of these bulbs use less energy than cycle is extremely important. One volunteering for environmental aspect of this topic is the conser- the standard T12 light bulbs. common belief that spread among projects such as planting trees is vation of energy through lighting, In the future, Acevedo plans to students was that the garbage and important, and she hopes to give heating and cooling systems. look into replacing all of the class- recycling bins at Prospect were be- opportunities like these to stu- Stanford University has imple- room bulbs with LED lighting. All ing mixed together. dents in the club. She enjoys doing mented LED lighting as a more of the outdoor lighting, including However, Higdon talked to the this at the Chicago Botanic Gar- sustainable light source through- the parking lot lights, has been janitors about it, and they do not. den and Spring Creek Farm locat- out their facilities. LED lighting, LED since 2015. Palomo further elaborated on this, ed in Schaumburg. converting 95% of its energy to Although there have been no saying that although the trash and “I think we all should be [pas- light and only wasting 5% as heat, district-level meetings to discuss recycling are technically mixed sionate about helping the en- is up to 80% more efficient than environmental action that Minter together, it is all sent to a location vironment],” Ellstrand said. “I traditional lighting such as fluo- is aware of, Prospect is planning where it can be sorted through don’t know if I’m particularly rescent or incandescent lights. to redo the exterior walls of the properly. more passionate [than others] … According to Building and building and roof this summer to “If you look at my google It’s our home, and we’re growing Grounds Supervisor Oscar Acev- provide better insulation that will searches, [they’re] like, ‘Can I re- up quickly. Time keeps moving edo, Prospect has LED lighting in result in less energy-use of heating cycle toothpaste?’ [or] ‘Can I re- whether we want it to or not, and both the fieldhouse and the gyms and cooling systems. cycle tissue?’” Higdon said. “I’m it’s something that we can con- that was installed two years ago in During the hotter months, always trying to learn because if trol.” (illustration by Mara Nicolaie) 2 NEWS NOVEMBER 1, 2019 prospectornow.com English classes get AP exam changes understand the quality of their the- RACHEL ZURBUCH ses better. All of these changes, he be- Executive Features Editor lieves, will make his students tarting in 2020, the AP ex- write better, and if his expecta- ams for classes AP English tions are more demanding, then SLanguage and Composi- the students will only benefit from tion (AP Lang) and AP English Lit- them on the AP test. erature and Composition (AP Lit) AP Lit changed to the same will be changed. scale from a nine point scale as The AP Lang exam is comprised well. The AP Lit exam includes one of one hour of multiple choice in hour of multiple choice and three five sets and three free response free response questions: one poet- questions: one synthesis, one rhe- ry analysis, one prose fiction anal- torical analysis and one argument. ysis and one literary argument. For the 2020 exam, parts one On the last question, students and two of the multiple choice will are given a theme and asked to be the same as last year, but parts write an argument with it. The three through five will be different. exam usually gives a list of exam- There will be no footnote ques- ples that students can use if they tions (questions that refer to the can’t think of anything, according bottom of the page for extra infor- to AP Lit teacher Karen Kruse. mation about the passage) any- For the 2020 exam, College more. The College Board will also Board will still include the trans- be lowering the usage of verbs on lation list, but literature that is passages and questions that are a translated from another language higher level in order to accommo- to English will not be included. date for all students. They are also including more 21st According to AP Lang teach- century and 20th century titles. er Elizabeth Joiner, the College Because of these changes, Board decided to change this to Kruse believes that she has to push have the questions emulate more her curriculum to more 20th centu- ry and beyond literature. rhetorical analysis, since that’s the CLASS REVISIONS: AP English Language and Composition (AP Lang) teacher Matt Love goes over basis of the AP Lang class.