11 July 2011

Eco lab will help primary pupils
An Eco learning centre was officially opened at Sir William Roberston High School (SWRHS) last week. The centre, which is based in a school laboratory, was created using nearly 7,000 of National Lottery funding. It will be used by the pupils of the schools feeder primary schools to gain first hand experience of things like science experiments and eco-friendly projects.

Sustainable school co-ordinator at SWRHS Seb Mann said: Its brilliant, we had high hopes for it but it has exceeded even the highest expectations.

We spent most of the money equipping the lab with lots of nice new gadgets and we invited the primary schools in to get hands on experience.

Its about sharing the resources that weve got. They are doing things they cannot realistically do in their primary schools.

So far the groups of children have grown cultures of bacteria, they have used bunsen burners and they have also had access to the brand new computers, which are hooked up with technology which allows them to record things like weather data.

Mr Mann said: They have loved it. But its not just a fun day, we want them to do something to build into their curriculum.

The school hopes to expand the use of the eco learning centre to all of their feeder primary schools from September. Mr Mann wants schools to get in touch with any requests for using the lab, which has a wind turbine and planning permission for some solar cells on the roof.

He said: We would like to encourage schools to contact us if there is a project they are doing, or going to do, that they would like help with. Several of the schools that have been so far have expressed interest in coming back again.

Schools will also have access to media and design technology facilities.

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