School Environment Days
It is not always parents teaching their children, sometimes children can teach the parents, taking home information they have learnt at school and spreading the knowledge to their family. Both Walworth School (now called Walworth Academy) and the Archbishop Michael Ramsey Technology College (now renamed St Michael and All Angels Church of England Academy) took the initiative and commissioned Carbon Descent to run an Environment Day and a Citizenship Day for staff and pupils relating to topics such as energy efficiency, recycling and fair-trade.
Walworth School
The Walworth School Environment Day workshops focused on saving energy in the school as well as safe and efficient transport to and from school. Each workshop group looked at a different part of the school building conducting simple audits of the lighting and suggesting how energy could be saved. The groups examined different levels of daylight and assessed when lights were necessary and who was responsible for turning them off. Specific outcomes included a suggestion for separate switches for groups of lights in large rooms. The school ran a design competition for light switch covers that remind pupils to turn off lights and the winning design being implemented in the school.
Archbishop Michael Ramsey Technology College
The Archbishop Michael Ramsey's Citizenship Day aimed to enhance the pupils' level of understanding of environmental issues as part of the college's bid to become an ‘eco school'. A series of energy saving workshops, reinforcing the connection between climate change and energy use, was delivered to groups of about 15 pupils who had to reflect how much energy their school was using on a daily basis. They were then encouraged to discuss ways to reduce this level of consumption and an action plan was designed and carried out as a result.