PHOTO COURTESY OF GREEN JAYS
Kookaburra Cookies sit on display as Opus Hall is named the winner of Green Jays’ Energy Madness competition with 18% reduction. The cookies were awarded to the winning residence hall for reducing energy use on campus during campus sustainability challenge energy conservation.
Even without a March Madness appearance from Creighton Bluejays men’s basketball team this spring, Creighton students still found a way to fill out a bracket — this time through sustainability, as Green Jays brought competition to campus with its annual Energy Madness challenge.
Green Jays Vice President Ginny Kraus, a sophomore environmental science major in the College of Arts and Sciences, described the organization as a student-led sustainability group focused on education, community building and environmental action both on and off campus.
“Green Jays is a club that is for students who are interested in sustainability and environmental science or just learning about nature and ways to help our planet,” Kraus said. “We do a lot of advocacy work; we do projects within Creighton and in the broader Omaha community. We’ve done park cleanups and craft days just to help build a community of students who are knowledgeable about what’s going on.”
One of Green Jays’ most visible initiatives is Energy Madness, a bracket-style competition between residence halls aimed at reducing campus energy consumption.
Energy Madness has been running for several years and engages students through friendly competition and sustainability education. Kraus said the goal is not only to reduce energy use, but also to help students recognize the impact of everyday choices.
“We’re trying to have a reduction in the amount of energy that we use in the university and help students be aware that their individual choices make a difference,” she said. “It’s a fun way to make it a competition and give incentives and get people interested in things like turning off lights, taking shorter showers or unplugging electronics.”
PHOTOS COURTESY OF GREEN JAYS
Caroline Watson wins the Energy Madness bracket challenge and receives a $100 Creighton Bookstore gift basket after accurately predicting the residence hall competition results.
Residence halls compete by measuring energy use against their own past five-year averages, allowing each hall to essentially compete against itself. The data is tracked in collaboration with Creighton’s sustainability office and Dr. Andrew Baruth, who helps maintain a live energy monitoring system for campus buildings.
“It’s based off last year’s totals for each dorm,” Kraus explained. “We work with the sustainability office and Dr. Andrew Baruth, and there’s a live data system that shows each dorm’s energy consumption. Students don’t see individual usage, but they can see the overall hall data.”
This year’s winner, Opus Hall, earned Kookaburra Cookies, while students who submitted brackets were entered into a raffle for a $100 Creighton bookstore merchandise basket.
Kraus also emphasized that Energy Madness reflects a broader goal within Green Jays: making sustainability approachable and community-driven.
“I think sustainability can feel overwhelming for a lot of people,” she said. “Green Jays gives students a way to feel like they’re making a difference, even through small actions, and we can collaborate and build ideas together to make things better.”
Looking ahead, Green Jays hopes to expand its advocacy efforts and continue fostering student engagement through both environmental initiatives and community bonding events.
“We want to do more advocacy work, both within Creighton and beyond it,” she said. “And we also want to keep building community — because a good club is not just about the topic, but about the people in it.”