16 August 2010

Children Engage on Sustainable Schools
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), is funding three years of research into sustainable education. The project in Leicester brings together pupils, teachers, governors and members of the local authority to develop energy efficient schools and apply sustainability measures into live building schemes.

Leicesters local authority has a 25-year ambition to transform itself into Britains sustainable city. Its partners include De Montfort University and ACE member Hulley & Kirkwood, who have been involved in its Building Schools for the Future team. Hulley & Kirkwood and De Montfort have been helping pupils at schools to express their views and what they have learned. They have been helped to produce PowerPoint presentations, newsletters, podcasts and videos as they discussed sustainability and presented their opinions to designers and local policymakers. Andrew Harris, associate with H&K, said: Having listened to the excellent presentations given by each of the student groups I was astounded by their grasp of both their understanding of the subject and their passion for the integration of renewable technologies in their new school. It was obvious that a great deal of high quality research has been carried out by all participants which resulted, not only in excellent presentation work on a variety of technologies, but furthermore a challenging question and answer session. It is encouraging to see that pupils of such a young age can engage in a mature debate and who are likely to develop into our next generation of high quality engineers.

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