More than 2,000 students from 92 fourth through twelfth grade classrooms participated in the 2025 Power Pledge Challenge, an initiative aimed at helping youth better understand energy use. This year’s state prize winner is Marty Dean’s 4th grade class in Juneau!
Utilities and organizations from the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, Anchorage, Kotzebue, Juneau, Interior, Sitka, Bering Strait, Southwest, and Inside Passage partnered in the challenge from August to November 2025. During the Power Pledge Challenge (PPC), students were prompted to think about their community energy use through a lesson from the AK EnergySmart curriculum, assessing how and where electricity is used and generated. After an interactive presentation, they engaged in hands-on activities such as measuring power usage with electricity monitors. Classes then calculated the cost of using different appliances and filled out the Power Pledge survey to document what they learned about energy efficiency. Those classes that had 50% or more completion of the pledge were entered to win the state and regional prizes. Beyond the class visit and pledge, students had the option complete additional activities for more entries to the prizes such as tracking their own transportation energy use or creating informational posters about reducing energy use (photo right).
Energy PSA Poster from Meghaan Bloomberg’s class at Talkeetna Elementary
Marty Dean’s 4th grade class at Auke Bay Elementary School in Juneau is the statewide winner of 2025! The class will receive a pizza party, a tour of the local power plant, and energy related classroom materials worth $1200. Nine regional winners each also earned a pizza party and/or tour of a local power plant.
Our class was so excited to hear they were Power Pledge Challenge winners! They are looking forward to the field trip, class party and most of all, the energy education resources and tools we’ll be able to purchase and share with other classes at Auke Bay Elementary! Our future is in great hands with this generation and their continued efforts to engage with renewable energy.
This year’s winning classes are:
The 2025 Power Pledge Challenge is made possible with support from these partners.
Learn more about the Power Pledge Challenge, including past winners, on the AK EnergySmart website.