More than 1,000 UH Mānoa students living in four Hale Aloha residence halls are engaging in a friendly competition to see which tower is the most environmentally conscious. The first-year students are embarking on the Quest for the , a nearly year-long energy and sustainability challenge to reduce energy usage while increasing energy literacy. The challenge runs through the Spring 2013 semester.
“What makes the Kukui Cup unique is that it combines energy education, prizes, real-time energy use feedback, online gaming and real-world experiences to encourage life-long changes in energy use on personal and societal levels,” said challenge organizer Philip Johnson, a UH Mānoa professor of .
The Quest for the Kukui Cup started in the first week of September 2012, with 19 energy-related excursions and workshops, including a trip to Oʻahu’s H-POWER waste-to-energy generation facility.
The Kukui Cup project is sponsored by the UH Mānoa Center for Renewable Energy and Island Sustainability, Student Housing Services, Facilities Management and Department of Information and Computer Sciences, as well as the National Science Foundation, HEI Charitable Foundation and Hawaiian Electric Company.
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—Adapted from a University of Â鶹´«Ã½ at Mānoa .