Emma Bittle Gets New Digs

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Talley Johnston, Student Life Editor
October 17, 2016

Would you sleep in a tent for ten weeks?

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Emma Bittle, a junior and third year ESA student, has chosen to live out of a duffel bag and in a tent for ten weeks. So far she has two weeks down and eight to go. We all know that ESA students enjoy learning about dirt, rocks, and nature but we never thought it would become this extreme.

“I wanted mine to be more of a change in lifestyle because we were learning all about how the western world uses so much and we try to persuade more developing countries to not do so, so I was going to see what it is like to live with less and hopefully get something more meaningful out of it,” said Bittle.

This is all part of a project for both ESA and AP Environmental Science, where students are trying to bring down their ecological footprint. Some students are cutting down their showers to five minutes, reusing lunch bags, driving less, or being vegetarian.

The project is a total of twelve weeks where the first two weeks students will record baseline data, such as how long their showers are or how much trash they produce. Then, when the ten weeks starts, the student tries to reduce the footprint by cutting back, like cutting down their shower time to three minutes.

For the past two weeks Bittle has been preparing for the following ten weeks,“I went through my entire closet and got rid of a lot of clothes and counted up all my clothes, and I had 120 shirts to start with… I have also been counting how long the lights are on or how long my computer or phone is charging, how many times I use the washing machine, and how long my showers are.”

Her proposal is that she is only allowed to go inside to take showers, use the washing machine, or to get food but she has to cook outside. The only exceptions to the project are that she will not record data when she is at school or on an ESA field trip, and the clothes that she will wear for Spirit Week do not have to be in the duffel bag. “I am going to suffer for sure, but I have a really good sleeping bag and I can build a fire and just wait out in my tent,” she said.

As a final note Bittle says, “I am sort of scared but excited at the same time.” Hopefully Bittle can endure the cold and weather for the ten weeks that stand before her. She is a great example of how students can take schoolwork to a whole new level and really changed by what they do.