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Students at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, have a very special shower ritual. Every day as they leave the shower, students living in the Student Experiment in Ecological Design house, or SEED, jump from the shower and check the timer on the wall. The current record is two minutes, 18 seconds.

Many have praised our generation for not only being idealistic but finding realistic ways to implement our ideas.

Students in the SEED house also compost, study together in the living room to conserve lighting costs, and pass out compact fluorescent light bulbs in the neighborhood.

Though most of us enjoy lingering in a hot shower or don’t feel the need to unplug every electrical appliance before leaving the house, we should learn from these students’ examples and look at ways to make our lives greener.

On such a huge campus at a public university, the idea of renovating a two-story house to make it energy efficient or starting a massive, bug-infested compost pile behind the dorms strikes us as somewhat unfeasible.

However, taking small steps, such as shaving a minute or two off your shower, is totally doable. It should be encouraged in everyone, not just students from small liberal arts schools. It’s a cliche, but we definitely all have the power to make a difference.