By Sora Hwang, News Correspondent
During the week leading up to Oct. 16, Northeastern students all over campus opened their doors to receive glow-in-the-dark condoms.
No, members of the Husky Environmental Action Team (HEAT) were not dorm-storming to promote safe sex. They were promoting the launch of this year’s Do it in the Dark competition.
“It’s an annual energy-saving competition for the freshman residence halls on campus that HEAT has put on now for a few years,” said Kayla Mottola, coordinator of the campus-wide event.
From Oct. 16 to Nov. 9, on-campus residents are encouraged to save energy by turning off their lights and unplugging appliances when not in use. Facilities will be keeping track of the energy saved in each residence hall during Do it in the Dark and will announce the results at the end of each week of the competition.
Mottola said smaller dorms do not have an advantage over larger ones and vice versa because “facilities can track energy usage by dorm and then percentage-wise.” The results, therefore, are scaled.
HEAT kicked off this year’s Do it in the Dark with food and games in the library quad and will host events throughout the three weeks for all undergraduate students, not just freshmen. The group is screening a movie on Oct. 29 to preview its as-yet-unannounced speaker in Blackman Auditorium on Nov. 7 at 7 p.m.
In previous years, HEAT has brought Bill Nye the Science Guy and Ralph Nader to campus during Do it in the Dark.
By bringing speakers to campus and hosting this event, HEAT hopes to affect change in Northeastern students’ habits and behavior. The goal is for students to not just win a pizza party, but also to make healthier decisions for themselves.
“If students don’t learn how to be sustainable now, it’s much more difficult for them when they leave campus and they actually are paying for their energy bills and they’re actually doing stuff on their own,” Mottola, a senior communications and environmental studies major, said.
Students are constantly told how sustainable Northeastern is, a message which actually ends up preventing good habits from developing, she said.
“They figure it’s being done for them,” Mottola said. “What HEAT struggles with is that a lot of the sustainable stuff isn’t visible to students, so a lot of the stuff we do is to try to make these things more visible.”
Do it in the Dark is a campus-wide event because HEAT members aim to instill energy-saving habits in all students, even if the competition is only among the freshman residence halls. The energy saving initiative is still an event that members of HEAT encourage everyone to partake in.
“I really want to see this become a traditional thing that students get excited about each year, something that we can all come together to do as a group,” Mottola said. “We can get fun with it and get a little competitive, but at the same time it’s important to just remember the message and the meaning.”
Through the event, HEAT provides Northeastern students with numerous tips on conserving energy and are gives them access to a constant information flow about sustainability through distributed materials and the speaker that closes out the event.
As Light Hall, winner of last year’s event, looks to take the crown again, Mottola said students should remember the purpose of Do it in the Dark is not just competition.
“It’s just looking at things from a wider scope and realizing that even though it might seem mundane to shut your lights off, it really is important,” she said.
