Residents of Totem Park pulled out all the stops — not to mention a lot of plugs — to compete in UBC’s first ever energy-saving contest in November. Their heroic efforts earned UBC a second-place finish in a competition that pitted it against 39 American universities and colleges.

Do It in the Dark was the name UBC organizers gave to the Campus Conservation Nationals, a US-based competition that challenges college and university campuses to achieve the greatest electricity and water use reductions during a 3-week period.

UBC students staged an extraordinary exercise in resource conservation in November. Do It in the Dark, the university’s first ever energy-saving contest, grew out of a groundbreaking collaboration between staff and students — but it was the students who made it an overwhelming success.

For three weeks, from November 1 to 19, the number one topic of conversation at Totem Park was Do It in the Dark, a continent-wide competition in which the residence competed with 39 American universities and colleges to see who could conserve the most electricity.