About the Authors

John E. Petersen

john.petersen@oberlin.edu

Affiliation Environmental Studies Program, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, United States of America

Cynthia M. Frantz

Affiliation Psychology Department, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, United States of America

Md. Rumi Shammin

Affiliation Environmental Studies Program, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, United States of America

Tess M. Yanisch

Affiliation Applied Psychology Department, New York University—Steinhardt, New York, New York, United States of America

Evan Tincknell

Affiliation Psychology Department, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, United States of America

Noel Myers

Affiliation Environmental Studies Program, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, United States of America

Competing Interests

All authors have read the journal's policy on competing interests. CMF, MRS, ET, NM, and TMY declare that no competing interests exist for them with respect to this manuscript. JEP has the following competing interests: he is a board member and shareholder of the company "Lucid." Lucid worked in partnership with the National Wildlife Federation, the Alliance to Save Energy, the Ohio Board of Regents (only in 2010 competition) and the U.S. Green Building Council (only in 2012 competition) to organize the competitions described in this manuscript. Specifically, Lucid provided the data acquisition, processing and display technology for all participating schools. As described in the manuscript, schools could participate in the competition free of charge. However, as described in the manuscript, customers of Lucid were provided with real-time access to competition results via automated monitoring technology installed on their campuses. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: JEP CMF MRS. Performed the experiments: JEP CMF MRS ET NM. Analyzed the data: JEP CMF MRS ET NM TMY. Wrote the paper: JEP CMF MRS ET NM TMY.