Professional Documents
Culture Documents
School Background
Site Visits
Site Visit 1
Site Visit 2
Recycling Poster
The role of a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is to help social decision making and make
the decisions more rational and easier to see which one is more cost effective
Our CBA analyzes if Sowams should stick with their current lunchroom system or
consider alternative scenarios
Our two scenarios are install a small composting system and add vermiculture bins
to the classrooms
lunchroom
Vermiculture in Classrooms
Vermiculture in Classrooms
Behavioral economics explains how we make decisions other than the rational choice
theory
Focuses on how society, psychological heuristics and the media can shape our decisions
Does not believe humans are rational, and makes decisions based on utility
We can use behavioral economics to nudge the principal and staff towards accepting
alternative scenarios other than their current lunchroom system
Help us understand their behavior and find the best ways to suggest new environmental
programs given their budget and school environment
Status quo bias- principal stated he liked to take new projects slow to avoid
chaos, and that a lot of teachers resist new programs
Loss aversion- chaos while implementing a new system would be seen more as a
loss than a gain, and there could be more opposition than support
Parents were the ones who started the lunch system and called the school to buy a
new dishwasher for plastic trays
We created new Earth Week activities to increase parent involvement, decrease the
chaos with the goal of permanent environmental programs in the near future
Our Recommendations
Increase scientific knowledge behind composting among faculty, students, and parents
Hold poster competitions to improve signs in cafeteria and involve younger students
Include art projects to make the program more engaging
Show an educational video narrated by children