Nine residence halls are participating in this year’s “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” Mizzou Dashboard competition, which lasts until Saturday.

Buildingdashboard.net/MU shows current updates in the competition, ranking residence halls by their overall percentage of electricity reduction. The winner will receive a trophy.

This year the competition is being run through the Residence Halls Association’s sustainability committee.

“RHA is having a much bigger position in it this semester, so we are hitting the ads really hard to get more awareness out,” RHA Service and Sustainability Director Taylor Dukes said.

Former RHA president and volunteer Jarod Abel said RHA is taking full control and using RHA student volunteers to help coordinate the event.

“Hopefully more students are involved because of RHA and more general knowledge of dashboard throughout RHA staff,” Abel said.

Student Sustainability Adviser Ben Datema started Mizzou Dashboard in 2008. He said it is intended to focus on educating people about ways to conserve energy through their actions and decisions.

“Mizzou’s current energy conservation program provides a cost avoidance of over $6 million every year, but we can still do better,” Datema said. “There are essentially two aspects to energy conservation: the infrastructure we have and the behavior of the people using that infrastructure. Energy Management has done incredible work with the energy infrastructure on campus in particular by updating lighting and appliances, retrofitting buildings, making the power plant cleaner and more efficient and through a variety of other projects.”

Dukes said the goal of Mizzou Dashboard is to raise awareness in the residence halls and decrease energy consumption.

“It is all about reducing our carbon footprint,” Dukes said. “It isn’t just about going ‘green,’ it is about creating a healthy environment for ourselves now and our future.”

RHA President Lauren Thomas said more students are now involved with Dashboard.

“I think the main goal of Dashboard is to raise awareness among students of how much energy they really are using and that a little can go a long way when it come to saving energy in the halls,” she said.

Thomas said there are little things that students can do to reduce their energy consumption.

“We are asking students to just be conscious of the energy they are using and when they can, turn their light off, turn off the water when brushing their teeth, unplug their appliances, except the fridge, when they’re not using them,” she said.

Abel suggested a way students can take the competition even further, if they’d like.

“If they want to go the extra mile they can change their light bulbs to Compact Fluorescent and utilize easy to turn on and off power cords,” Abel said. 

Dukes said the turnout of Mizzou Dashboard varies each time.

“Some past semesters we have had a lot of participation, other times not so much,” Dukes said. “This year we have been off to a pretty good start, especially in the Dobbs area.”

Thomas said most students don’t even realize they are using energy.

“Previous competitions have been successful, but there is always room for improvement and students can always save more energy,” Thomas said.

Abel said there is usually about a 2 to 6 percent reduction in energy consumption through Mizzou Dashboard.