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The Kuala Lumpur Times

10 May 2013 Hannah Arafeh Period 1 BREAKING NEWS: ARAFEH FAMILY PROMOTES ELECTRICTY REDUCTION AND NOTES DRASTIC MONTHLY CHANGE by Hannah Arafeh
What efforts have you been putting forward to save our planet? Since August of 2012, a new student of the International School of Kuala Lumpur has been making a huge effort to reduce her and her household members electricity usage within her home. Her name is Hannah Arafeh; she has made a remarkable difference in the environment and her familys own electricity bills. Its the small things that add up, definitely, Arafeh says. Most houses here in Kuala Lumpur have rooms that contain 3 or 4 light switches that work for different sets of lights. You might think you need that light in the corner on, but you really dont. And in the end, that one set of light usage adds up. In total, her electricity bill dropped a staggering 422 KwH. Im proud, for sure, the 14-year-old says of her progress. 80% of it is awareness, though. Just getting the whole family into it is whats difficult, but once they develop the habit, its there to stay. Its a pretty good habit to have. The other 20% is a measly amount of effort. When asked how the reduction of electricity has impacted her life, she laughs. It hasnt! Its so easy, really. Turning off lights when you leave a room requires no energy, no pun intended. I dont see why someone would not want to do this. Not only is it saving money, but also there is a feeling of satisfaction when you see your electricity bill drop and you can think, wow, Im actually giving back to the planet. It feels good.

Upon being questioned just how Hannah determined her electricity usage decayed, she replies, if its not obvious from the huge numerical drop in the table, Ill explain how I found a fitted line. First, I pick two coordinates from the plot. Since Im trying to find the overall decrease, I pick the first and last months, (1, 2478) and (9, 2056). To find the slope, I divide the change in y by the change in x. So (2056 - 2478) / (9-1) simplifies to -422/8, which comes to a slope of -52.75. Since Im in grade 8 advanced algeo, I recently learned something called slope-intercept form otherwise known as y = mx + b. M = the slope, so I can substitute that so our equation will look like: y = -52.75x + b. Now I can substitute an ordered pair from the scatter plot into this equation, Ill go with (1, 2478) again. That makes our equation look like: 2478 = -52.75(1) + b. Since multiplying by one doesnt change the value of -52.75, the equation is simplified to 2478 = -52.75 + b. Now to isolate the variable, I need to add 52.75 to both sides, which is 2530.75 = b, meaning that my vertical intercept = 2530.75 KwH. Now that I know my vertical intercept, I can substitute that for b in my next equation, which is to find how long it will take for my family to reach a sustainable amount of KwH per month (300 KwH.) Well start off with the slope intercept form: y = mx + b. We know the slope (-52.75) so we can substitute that for m: y = -52.75x + b. Once again, we already know the vertical intercept, which is b, so we can substitute that too! So far, our equation is y = -52.75x + 2530.75. Our ideal electricity usage (y) is 300 KwH, so well put that in too, and solve for x. 300 = -52.75x + 2530.75. Subtract 2530.75 from both sides to equal -2230.75 = -52.75x. Isolate x by dividing both sides by -52.75, to equal 42.28 = x. Rounding off to the nearest whole number, we can say that it will take my family about 42 months to reach a sustainable amount of electricity usage. Obviously this is a huge number and will take nearly approximately 3.5 years, however (cont page 2)

DONT BELIEVE IT? SEE FOR YOURSELF!

When you walk into your bedroom after a long day at school and hit every light switch on the wall without thinking twice, consider this: do I really need all of these lights on? No! You probably only need one or two of those lights, honestly. Hannah Arafeh, ISKL

(cont from page 1) I do have a lot of people living in my household at any given moment. We are still working to decrease our electricity usage as much as possible, thats whats important.

THE VISUALS

Anything else youd like to add, Miss Arafeh? Yeah, theres one more thing. KEEP SAVING ENERGY! Okay, Im done.

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