Simple Things You Can Do To Save Energy

Winner of a Bronze award at the Birmingham International Educational Film Fest, this energy awareness guide for young people follows 12-year-old Sarah Rueger as she conducts an Energy Audit in a home. In a series of humorous segments, Sarah stumbles upon an illuminating conversation between an incandescent lightbulb and a fluorescent lightbulb over energy savings; plays a well-informed contestant in a grueling gameshow cross-examination over the family fridge; plays "Draft Girl," a superheroine who fights drafts with the weapons of caulking and insulation; and, in a skit entitled "Indiana Jane and the Beast in the Basement," she confronts the number one energy-sucker: the furnace. The program ends with a set of suggestions for converting parents into energy-savers. While this is a fun and educational program, it's notably lacking in budget conservation. Few will be inclined to pay $169 for a how-to, especially when a program like MCA/Universal Home Video's Help Save Planet Earth (reviewed in our October 1990) covers similar ground (and more) for $14.95. Recommended for libraries who are cost-unconscious. (R. Pitman)