Schools throughout New York City are competing to become the most eco-friendly in the city by encouraging their students to save energy during school hours.

Thirty schools will participate around the city to help achieve Mayor Michael Bloomberg's goal of reducing energy consumption by a third by 2017.

“The sustainability of this effort is very difficult. We may see some drop-offs, and that’s why we are trying it for a year,” said John Shea, CEO of the NY Department of Education's School Facilities. “It may be easy to achieve behavioral change for a month, but for a lifetime it would be challenging.”

New York City has more than 1 million students in its public school system and 1,200 school buildings, which account for more than a quarter of the city's energy use. The new program is aimed to cut schools' energy use by motivating students to adopt green behaviors, such as turning off lights and unplugging computers before leaving the classroom, which students have vowed to do.

The schools that have the most energy savings by April will be awarded a total of $30,000. The program is being recognized as the first of its kind and could possibly be adopted by other cities if successful.

This is just one of many efforts by Empire State cities to become more energy efficient. In another green energy initiative, wind turbines were recently added to the town of Hempstead.