Eco Schools
- Time for you to make a difference
- Helping hands
- Who's doing what?
- Copp Church of England School
- Great Barr School
- Greengairs Primary School
- Portobello School
- Ravenscraig Primary School
Time for you to make a difference
There's a story about a man who goes for a walk on a beach after a stormy night. To his horror the beach is littered with crabs, starfish and other sea life, cast onto the shore by the high seas. In the hot sun the creatures are dying.
Coming the other way is a woman who is picking up the crabs and starfish and carrying them back to the sea. 'What are you doing?' asks the man. And the woman replies that she is rescuing the stranded starfish and crabs. 'But look,' says the man. 'There are thousands, you can't save them all.'
The woman looks around her at the thousands of dying creatures. She picks up another starfish. 'Maybe not,' she says, as she carries it to the sea. 'But I saved that one.' Many people argue that the world's energy problems are too big to be solved by individuals. 'What can I do?' they say. 'What difference will it make?'
The honest answer is that one person's actions do not make much of a difference but, if everyone acted on that principle, nothing would ever be achieved - and when people work together great things can happen. Eco schools are one way of working together. The starting point is a group of pupils and teachers who take a green-eyed look at their school. This is an audit - a snapshot of how eco-friendly the school is.
How much recycling goes on? Is energy used wisely or wasted? Do people think about the resources they are using - paper, card, ink cartridges? Are lights left on, taps left to drip and windows left open for the heat to escape? After the audit comes the action plan. The plan for change must be linked to the school's curriculum and there should be some community involvement - with other schools perhaps, or a local environmental group.
Once the first steps are complete, the school can apply for eco status. Only the really eco-friendly schools will win the coveted green flag, but the bronze and silver awards mark a school's progress towards the top award. And any action is better than none.
Helping hands
Any school working towards eco status is going to need a helping hand. The Eco Schools organisation can help with some grants, but there are other sources of cash that school groups should consider.
www.eco-schools.org.uk
The British Trust for Conservation Volunteers was selected by the lottery fund (New Opportunities Fund) to run the People's Places Award Scheme. This has provided £6.5 million of grants to 1,000 projects in England over five years. The Scheme started in May 2001 and is now closed to new applications. However, the site not only provides information on the award winners, but suggests other sources of funding.
www.btcv.org.uk
Environmental charities like the World Wildlife Fund provide resources for schools related as part of the National Grid for Learning.
www.wwflearning.co.uk
Groundwork is a major British charity that aims to make a real difference to people's local environments. By 2002 Groundwork had helped with projects in 3,857 schools. More than 350,000 students had taken part in programmes, and a further 2 million young people had benefited from their schools' involvement.
www.groundwork.org.uk
Who's doing what?
The 31 five- to twelve-year-olds at the Lunnasting School on Shetland all took part in their latest eco school project. Lunnasting has been an eco school for nine years (the first in Scotland) and the latest focus has been energy - looking at their energy use and finding alternative sources.
Electricity is expensive to produce on Shetland, but wind and daylight are free and plentiful, so the Lunnasting project has looked at ways of harnessing wind using turbines, and using solar panels to make electricity.
A wind turbine was the ambitious project at Ladygrove primary school in Telford, Shropshire. It was part of the school's bid for eco school status. Ladygrove's turbine cost just under £4,000. The money came from the Marches Energy Agency, which is in turn distributing funds given by a national power company.
A bigger windmill has been in place at Skegness Grammar School for some time. The 2.5 kilowatt turbine powers 31 computers in a computer room, the lighting circuit in the science block and the hot water system for the same block. The money came from the Wolfson Foundation, which offers schools grants for Science and Technology projects. Contact the Wolfson Foundation on 020 7323 5730.
Copp Church of England School
Copp Church of England primary in Lancashire is a rural primary school that has been leading the way on environmental issues since 1996. That was when the school gained its first European green flag award, but plaudits have followed thick and fast since then. In 1998 the school won the NatWest Business Environmental Achievement Reporting Award and a year later the North West Region Powersavers Award.
In 2002, the big project was the renewal bid for the school's eco status. People who think eco status involves little more than litter picking and a recycle bin should take a look at this bid, which can be seen on the school's website, www.coppschool.lancsngfl.ac.uk. Copp pupils recycle everything from aluminium cans to stamps and pupils run energy patrols to keep wastage down.
Great Barr School
Great Barr school in Birmingham has just over 2,400 students on roll, and has been an eco school for nearly four years. The school has the highest level of eco status, with a Green Flag award.
Great Barr's Eco Co-ordinator is teacher Sarah Page.
'Our focus is on energy, litter and recycling,' she says. Great Barr's current project is to 'green up the site' with trees. But there's an active recycling programme, light sensors for rooms and plans to use rain water for central heating radiators. The list goes on.
Most ideas come from the students. Above each light switch in the school is a 'Switch Off' sign designed by students and the various recycling campaigns have been student-led.
When possible, recycling benefits charitable causes. For example, mobile phones go to Oxfam and printer cartridges to the RNIB.
See the eco schools website at: www.eco-schools.org.uk
Find out about Oxfam's mobile recycling scheme at: www.oxfam.org.uk/mobile
Find out how old printer cartridges can help the Royal National Institute for the Blind at: www.rnib.org.uk (click on Fundraising)
Greengairs Primary School
Eco Schools is an award scheme that gets everyone in the school community involved in improving the school environment. It's a great way to make sustainable development part of the life of your school.
Greengairs Primary was challenged to turn waste material into high fashion outfits. 'Easy peasy,' said the kids and the results were showcased to the Scottish Environment Minister, Ross Finnie.
The challenge was set by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA).
The Minister met with the children to talk about how they designed and created their outfits out of waste materials and other work they are doing to improve the environment.
Greengairs already holds a green flag as part of the Eco Schools campaign. The school earned its flag by keeping litter at bay, recycling, improving school grounds, energy conservation and promoting a healthy school.
'The children had great fun in designing and making their outfits,' said headteacher Wendy Gordon. 'But they also understood the serious message behind doing it.'
That message was all about reducing waste and making the most of the resources we all throw away by recycling as much as possible.
Portobello School
Portobello School in Edinburgh was the first school in Edinburgh (and the second in Scotland) to be declared an eco school in 2002. Eco school assessors visited the school to find out about Portobello's green credentials. They viewed the 'Greenhouse in the Sky' alternative energy project (with solar panels, wind turbine and automatic weather station), a willow sculpture created at an after-school art club and the school bike sheds. They particularly commented on the absence of litter in the grounds.
The assessors also heard about the school's allotment where students grow strawberry plants, potatoes and flowers. You can see how Portobello worked towards their success on their website, www.portobello.edin.sch.uk. Click on the link Porty 4 the Planet.
Ravenscraig Primary School
Ravenscraig Primary in Greenock has won the Eco Schools Green Flag award twice. The school has an eco garden that is the pride of its pupils and staff.
'Our garden is in its seventh year,' said headteacher Isabella Lind in 2003. 'Last year we planted 2,000 snowdrops. And we make our own plant food using comfrey.' The school recycles paper, plastic bottles, printer cartridges and mobile phones. For the plastic recycling, children write their name on the bottle before dropping it into the recycle bin. When the bin is full one bottle is picked out and whoever's name is on the bottle wins a prize.
'It's that kind of thing that keeps the children interested,' said Mrs Lind. This year's eco focus is on saving energy. One of Ravenscraig's pupils has written a reminder that is pasted over every light switch in the school. 'If the day is bright turn off the light'
