Lean Green Eco Machine

Wild thing!

Last November we developed a link with Simon Morris, a lecturer in horticulture, from the Isle of Wight College who agreed to help us develop a wild garden in the area behind C6 running along Upper St. James Street.

Mr Morris had planted these seedlings up at the college and this week he came in and planted them into the wild area with members of the Eco-schools working group, the Gardening club and Mr Wilkes.

The species planted were Daisy (Bellis perennis), Honesty (Lunaria annua), Hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis), Teasel (Dipsacus fullonum), Toadflax (Linaria vulgaris), Valerian (Valeriana officinalis), Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) and Golden Rod (Solidago canadensis).

You can see the pattern of the planting in this schematic diagram below:

The British Statue of liberty?

This week we have taken delivery of our new bird table which will adorn the area just behind the CID centre when we have trimmed the existing bushes. Here we can see Mr Wilks recreating the pose which greets sailors as they enter New York harbour!

School Travel Plan annual review

Part of the School Travel Plan programme is an annual review to identify the effect that our strategies are having on sustainable travel to and from school and identify new targets for the coming year. Year 7 maths pupils performed a survey of all pupils in the school to identify the modes of transport used and graphed the data ready for the review. The full file can be accessed by clicking on the link below but the headlines are as follows:

In comparison with last year, the data shows that 31 more pupils walk to school, double the number of pupils cycle (now 16), 28 more use public transport and car use has gone DOWN by 26 pupils. This is obviously excellent news and indicates that we are becoming more sustainable. Also, the survey was done in February at the back end of the wet winter and we think it would be even more positive in the summer months.

If you have any suggestions or comments regards this work or the work we are doing for the Eco-schools project please contact Mr Peace.

To download the full review, please click on this link:

Download nodehill_middle_school_annual_review_may_2007.doc

Do the Can-can!

This week we have had to empty the can recycling bins as they are full! We didn't count how many cans there were but estimates are well over a hundred. These cans will now be collected by Haylands Farm as part of the Alupro 'Trees for Africa, trees for the UK' campaign.

Biodiversity 2006-2007

Amazon World

We started the Summer Term in fine form as the girls from Amazon World came in to present an assemby on biodiversity and sustainability. They brought with them an armadillo called Pedro who, despite his interesting smell proved a hit with even the year 8 boys. The talk was very informative and covered climate change and endangered species and what the pupils could do to make a small difference themselves.

Developing the school grounds

Over the last 2 years we have done some work on biodiversity, ensuring that we do not use chemical pesticides and herbicides in the school grounds and developing the patio areas with planters and hanging baskets to provide flowers.

However, the bulk of our work has been in the planning all year and throughout this term will come to fruition as we develop the school grounds further working with Wight Wildlife and the Isle of Wight College to provide a wild area with various habitats including butterfly friendly plants and a log pile, bird and bat boxes for nesting around the school and a new bird table.

Energy 2006 - 2007 (cont)

Clouds Energy Review

Over the last 3 years the Working Group has logged energy usage by the school and looked at ways to reduce it. In March we took the step of buying in the consultancy services of a company called Clouds environmental. They came in and spent the whole day at the school looking at how the school uses energy and identifying ways in which we could change our practice to use energy more efficiently. You can access the report by clicking on the link below:

Download cc20070804_nodehill_middle_school_final.doc

Mr Peace presented a synopsis of the work done on energy as part of the Eco-schools project and the proposals provided in the Clouds report to the Governors Grounds and Buildings committee in April. They were very complimentary about the work that has been going on thus far and suggested putting the Clouds proposals on the agenda for each meeting to look into achieving these proposals over time.

More Able Pupil Project

Mr Taylor and Mr Peace have been working with a group of More Able pupils from year 7 on a renewable energy project. The school recently bought an industrial wind turbine (obviously with a small turbine radius!) and solar panel to try and run some components in the science lab. Mr Taylor has been looking into the mathematics associated with deriving energy from the wind and tides, and Mr Peace will look into the geographical implications of using renewable energy resources. We propose that by the end of the summer term the pupils will produce a 10 minute documentary on renewable energy to show the school.

Energy 2006-2007

Pupils learn better in natural daylight!

We have continued our campaign to persuade teachers and pupils to turn off the lights when they are not in the room or there is enough daylight to use that. Government surveys have shown that pupils learn better in natural daylight than they do in artificial flourescent lighting.

Electricity usage by the school

We have continued to log the electricity usage of the school as shown here. It has been useful to identify trends in the data. 2006 has been the year in which we have used the most electricity and we have been looking into reasons why that may be.

We have recently had a Smartmeter installed which will allow us to access this data on-line in real-time rather than looking at bills when they come in and this will allow us to pinpoint times when electricity use is at its peak and why.

Gas usage by the school

We have continued to log the gas usage of the school as shown here based on data supplied by bills. The dataset has not been particularly reliable due to incomplete records and data which we hope will be addressed soon.

Energy saving lightbulbs

The Footprint Trust ran a stall at the Christmas Fayre to promote the work they do on the Island. They gave out free energy saving light bulbs to those who wanted them in order to publicise the fact that if we all swapped one normal bulb for an energy saving bulb then we could close one of our power stations down.

They gave out 45 light bulbs on the night which equates to 45 tonnes of carbon saved over their lifetime. This is based on the following calculation:

A 100 Watt bulb burning for an average 7 hours per day for 365 days per year uses over 250kW hours per year and produces 125 kilos of carbon.

A low energy bulb uses only 20% of that producing 25 kilos of carbon per year saving 100 kilos of carbon per year or 1 tonne over its 10 year life span!

Transport 2006-2007

Having installed the new bike racks last year, we took the next step by covering them to provide a dry, safe storage facility for the bikes during the day as shown in these photos

   We have again participated in the Park and Stride scheme enabling parents to park in the Chapel Street Car park for 30 minutes at the start and end of the school day for free allowing pupils to walk down and meet them and getting some exercise into the bargain.

We have continued to provide cycle training for pupils in year 5 and 6. This year, 13 pupils took part in this training and 7 went on to obtain their cycling proficiency certificate.

At the end of this school year it will be time to review our School Travel Plan which we received certification for last year. In order to obtain the data for this review, Mrs Fauvel has been doing a transport survey of all the children in the school with her maths set and they will provide all sorts of graphs etc which we will publish on the site.

Go Ride!

We signed up to this scheme last year so that we could provide training for members of PE staff in order that we could offer cycling as part of PE lessons. Unfortunately the scheme turned into something of a political hot potato and Mr Reeves is still waiting to learn when the training is going to be.

Waste minimisation (cont) 2006-2007

The Recycool project

We have signed up to the recycool project which collects toner and print cartridges and old mobile phones. For every one of these items which the school collects and saves from landfill we will get a cash donation. Any of these items you want us to dispose of can be put in the red Recycool box in the school reception. As shown in this photo, 3 members of the Working Group went around the local shops and offices to promote the scheme and ask them to display posters to widen our net of contributors.

Why should I recycle my mobile phone?

Mobiles contain cadmium which is a highly dangerous and toxic substance. Once dumped in landfill sites the phone casing corrodes and the cadmium leeches out into the soil. Also, many developing countries do not have a comprehensive landline infrastructure. As a result, mobile phones may be the only way to communicate over a distance. Recycool send old mobiles to these countries to help solve the problem.

Waste minimisation 2006-2007

Saving paper

As part of the campaign to save paper we have been putting our weekly newsletter on the school website each week and only printing out copies to those parents who have requested it. As a result we now print out 200 copies of the newsletter each week compared to the 700 we were printing last year.

We have saved 33060 sheets of paper through this initiative so far.

As paper costs 0.28p per sheet, this equates to £88.64.

Further to this, we have saved money in Science by producing answer sheets rather than printing whole practice SATs tests. This has saved 20200 sheets and £28.56

In geography we have introduce computer based testing in KS3 saving 1600 sheets and £44.80

Total paper saving = 69260 sheets of paper and £162.00

Around the school we have been collecting paper that has only been used on one side and we have started to make our own A5 Notebooks upon the suggestion of one of the working group. These notebooks will be given to the pupils free of charge when their General Notebook has run out.

Recycling

We have continued with a bin for Green waste in the staffroom and empty this waste into the school compost bin as shown on the left. This is getting so full we need to buy another one.

We also plan to buy a wormery to continue our work in this area.

Can recycling

We have taken part in the Alupro can recycling project. By collecting cans and recycling them, AluPro contributes to tree replanting programme in Africa.