Measuring Our Carbon Footprint by Zoë Dennison

Today we, as green council, started to measure our Carbon footprint for a competition called Race2Zero, which involves schools in the Richmond Borough. In period 4 we met our mentor, who is called Mehmet Olgun, from Carbon Clear. He explained how we fill in a spreadsheet which helps us to calculate our Carbon footprint, looking at energy use as well as travel details of staff and students and waste management. We wrote down all the questions we would need to ask to people around the school to help us work out our carbon emissions. The year 8's went off to mind map ways to raise awareness of our work across the schools and help reduce our carbon footprint.

We managed to get hold of Ken Haines from the Premises team and he told us
lots of information about our electricity, water and gas usage. Did you know that the school spends approximately £5,000 on gas and electricity a month? Mr Haines then took us to see the main school boiler room. This was very interesting to see. We found out that the boilers had recently been changed and therefore are more energy efficient, the school has to be kept above 18 degrees and that every time a door to outside is left open the boiler then has to adjust the amount of energy it uses to make up for all the heat leaving the school. We were happy to hear that with the new buildings the school will be much more energy efficient and that we may need less boilers. Once we had left the boiler room it was lunch.
 
After lunch, we then split up into different groups. The year 8´s then presented their ideas. Maisie and Susie went off to find out how many computers are left on unused. Jagoda and Monique went off to find out how many fridges there were in the school. The year 8's planned a Dragon´s Den style activity for Conrad and Wordsworth whilst a small group worked with Mr Molin on the spreadsheet. It was a very enjoyable day, especially the time with Mr Haines, who was very informative and engaging.
 
“Today I have learnt lots of facts, including that there are 27 fridge/freezers around the school." Monique Lakhman

 
“We found out that the school spends about £500 every three weeks on paper" Zoë Dennison

 
“I like learning about the boilers used in school with Mr Haines" Sam Fuller

 
“I liked the trip down to the boiler room, it was very interesting and informative." Jack Pannett

 
“I learnt that we send about 5 tons of waste to the landfill" Aimee Williams

 
“I checked around the school and there were 132 computers left on unused" Susie Burley