Year 8 YEP!

Friday 27 May 2011

The YEP! Project (Young Energy People) was launched in October 2010 and involves a conscientious team of nine Year 8 pupils at Cirencester Deer Park School: Wesley Caine, Lucy Stephenson, Maddie Kitchen, Eden Holdford, Charlotte Ellis, Abi Walsh, Katie Foye, Cameron Harper and Kelsey Beames.

‘It has been really interesting seeing how people waste energy and how simple things can save the energy. These are normally things people can’t be bothered to do so we’re going to try to help people realise that these little things don’t take much effort at all and will save our planet’. Katie Foye, Project Manager

Each pupil forms part of the school’s Energy Management Team – Katie and Lucy are the Project Managers and are in charge of a team of IT or Marketing Team. Every pupil went through a strict interview for a place in the YEP! Project. Since their appointment, the YEP! pupils have taken part in a training day where they learned how to survey a school and read the gas and electricity meters. The pupils have carried out a survey of the main block that included: heating, lighting, temperatures and other electrical appliances.

Some of our findings are below:

• 15 out of 30 rooms had lights left on
• Computer monitors are regularly left on even though there is no one in the room
• The main hall costs over £2000 to light every year
• Some of the radiators are too hot to touch and people open windows to cool the rooms down.

As a school, in 2010 we released the equivalent of 522,966.54 party balloons of CO2 into the air – an absolutely HUGE number! We would need to plant 2139 trees to cope with all that carbon dioxide.

To help to reduce this amount we presented our results to the school’s Governor’s Resources Committee and asked for their support with some of our recommendations e.g. changing light bulbs to the most energy efficient type and insulating pipe work to radiators to ensure that no heat is lost. We were successful in raising £250 for campaign materials.

Headteacher, Chiquita Henson, praised the pupils’ commitment to the project. ‘Members of our governing body were impressed by the team’s resilience and their determination to implement change and reduce costs and energy consumption. They presented a compelling case and have challenged us all to reflect on our daily use of appliances.’

During the week 23-27 May we have been running an Energy Awareness Week for Year 7 pupils. Pupils have the chance to take part in energy quizzes, treasure hunts, poster competitions and also apply to become an Energy Spy. Energy spies are going to look around the school for classrooms that have electrical appliances left on. They then report back to the YEP! team and the results for each faculty are collated. The best and worst faculty regarding energy efficiency and energy loss will be named named!

We plan to reduce the school’s carbon dioxide output by 10% over the next 3 years and hope to do our bit to save the environment and help reduce global warming.

For more information contact, Catherine Cain, Key Stage 3 Science Co-ordinator.

Related Links:

• YEP! Young Energy People