Light Audit

       My favorite part of Earth Camp Middle School 2010 was learning about how different types of lights affect people’s eyesight at night when they are looking at objects outside. When we looked at the lights with light diffraction lens we could see the light’s identity. The lights that we saw were the LED lights, florescent lights, floodlight lights, neon lights, incandescent lights, black lights, halogen lights, and the UV lights. After we saw the different lights we went around the Desert Museum and calculated how many lights there were and how much watts are used per light in a given amount of time the lights are on each night. Once we collected all the data of the lighting around the museum we found out how many kilowatts are used in a year. Just in one year the museum alone uses about 3,345,120 kilowatts in a year. When a white light gets shined into your eyes, your rhodopsin that builds up at night so you can see objects at night goes away. This causes you to not be able to see all of the beautiful animals, stars, and planets. A way I could reduce shining lights into people’s eyes is to put red cellophane on my flashlights home and during camping trips. Another way I could solve that problem is to tell at least one person around my neighborhood a month about their flashlights. Since they came to the museum to talk to us I want them to come out to my school and let them share with other people on how to produce less light pollution.