maanantai 28. maaliskuuta 2011

Earth Hour 2011 at Länsimetsä school

sunnuntai 27. maaliskuuta 2011

Halfway information

We have now got intermission information about our energy saving campaign. Here follows the information of water, heating and electricity consumption. We have done a good job and these fine results certainly inspire us to take more active actions - both students and adults!

HEATING
So far we have decreased heating consumption 3,2%. It means 600 euros. With this money you can heat detached house for one year. Excellent job!
You still have to remember:
- air quickly
- don't twist thermostats in barracks
- shut front doors and communicating doors
Window seals are now fixed and we remind evening users not to keep front door open.

ELECTRICITY
So far we have decreased electricity consumption 2,4%. This means 450 euros. With this money you can pay electricity usage of one detached house. Very good job!
You still have to remember:
- turn off unnecessary lights and apparatus
- don't leave "rest electricity" on
- pay special attention to lights in copier room, switch them off!
It easy to save elctricity if only you are active. Don't blame others, act yourself!

WATER
We have not get any savings in water consumption - instead we have consumed 1% more water than earlier.. This is irritating, naturally.
You have to:
- take quick showers
- wash the hands in the way you save water
In future cleaners and kitchen personnel have to pay more attention on water consumption, too.
Our goal is to get savings also in this area!

Recycling weekend

On 25.-27.3. we had a special 50/50 - weekend at our school. Our parents comittee organized a fleamarket at school. Everybody was able to come and sell all kind of things that are useless for them but maybe a treasure for someone else. As you can see in the picture, there were many people and over 20 families were there for selling. This is real recycling things. In many families, actually children were there to sell and buy. We also carried all the "lost and found" clothes to the fleamarket and everybody could check if there were familial clothes or even just some clothes that you would like to use. In the end of the fleamarket some parents wanted to donate some skates and children books to our school.

We also got big containers for electric waste and metal junk in our school yard. Everybody could throw metal and electric waste in to the container for free. We made co-operation with Iki-Metalli company. The containers were there the whole weekend and we are actually getting some money from the metal junk. As you can see in the picture, a lot of broken bicycles and old computer monitors are now in right place.

The last but not the least action for the same weekend is to take part in Earth hour -campaign to help nature by swiching the lights off in the evening for one hour. You can see a video about that action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMwArLkF0oU





Heidi, active member of our energy team, wrote:
"In our school there was recycling happening whole weekend. On Friday we got two big containers in school yard. You could bring there metal and electric waste. We get money out of this junk; for example 5e/kilogram for copper. We took junk from home with my father and brought it to both containers. We carried there two old televisions, four computers, toaster, pans, lantern and metal garden chairs. Just after that we went to P.E. hall. There was a fleamarket event. There were about 25-30 sellers and they were selling for example clothes, books, cups, toys and some bikes. In the evening I went to icehockey match, but my mother and my brother took part in Earth hour -campaign. So we saved energy the whole weekend!"

perjantai 25. maaliskuuta 2011

Let's play eko or ego



We got great board games to our school. The name of those games are eko or ego. The idea is to start to think how different activities effect to you and to nature. You can choose from four different alternavites; good for you and nature, good for you but bad for nature, bad for you and good for nature and the last is bad for both you and for nature. The activities are for example switch the lights off, use train to travel to Lapland, dry your clothes in a dryer... We had a lot of dicussions during that game. It really made pupils to think! There are actually no right or wrong answers. Those board games were free and anybody can order them via Internet: http://subjectaid.fi/

torstai 24. maaliskuuta 2011

Our energy team & a handy man:-)




Here are the Boss, Kirsi Autio with pupils from our energy team.
Here is Saku from Finland, Vaasa.
We had a meeting where we discussed about how to save more heat. We realized that insulators in some of the windows were very poor. Here is a picture of a handy man. He is going to move window frames just a little bit so that the whole window would fit better to its place. Let´s hope this plan will work.

sunnuntai 20. maaliskuuta 2011

U4energy -project




We decided to take part in an international project; U4 energy. We recieved a big envelope. There were 2 posters, some stickers and other important information. We put posters to school walls to remind us how to save energy. Two pupils (Sanni and Hanna) have been very effective on switching lights off from toilets and other areas. They decided were to put those 4 stickers. There are 2 toilets were there are often unnessessarily lights on.
You can find more information on Internet:
www.U4energy.eu

Thank you for your answers!!

At the end of year 2010 Marita (very active teacher in our school:-)) wrote to other 50/50 -schools and asked them to answer questions about the project and energy saving actions. We thought that maybe we will get only few answers. But, you have been so active!! You can read some answers in our blog. We have not put all the answers there, but we have read them to our energy team members.
I thank La Tordera school (Catalonia, Spain), Rosa Luxemburg school (Potsdam, Germany), Altalanos Iskola - Balatonerdred and Polan Dabrowa Gomicza for the answers. It has been so interesting to hear from you!

sunnuntai 13. maaliskuuta 2011

Entrepreunership education

We have had a project about entrepreneurship education. Pupils first made profiles about customers and then planned a cover for a notebook. We had over 100 suggestions for covers and we voted 9 of them. We have been thinking about marketing and how to sell those notebooks. We have made commercials and planned press handouts. We wanted to link this project to our 50/50- project and we decided to use only recycled paper and carton for these notebooks. We can then help nature. We also emphasise that detail when we sell these notebooks. We will add 50/50 -logo to each notebook and add the knowledge for saving energy and nature with these notebooks. We are planning to sell 600 notebooks and gather money for fieldtrips.

Here are some examples of notebook covers!






maanantai 7. maaliskuuta 2011

Consumption monitoring




We get monthly consumption readings of electricity, warmth and water. There (from the top: water, warmth and electricity)are consumption tables for each month (year 2010). There we can check if we have saved energy or not..

Comments about sorting

This spring we have focused on sorting.
What do you think, have we proceeded lately?
Osmo, the caretaker:
- Yes, I think we have done it quite well. Now we have got fine trash cans for garbage. Sometimes it is hard to remember how to sort but I think it works in our school.
How could we decrease the amount of rubbish?
-We must try to choose products with little packaging, but it is quite difficult because almost every product is wrapped properly. So if you buy a product you also get much garbage.


How has sorting gone lately?
Cleaners(Arja and Roosa) of our school:
- There is still things where to improve.
What effects have new waste containers had?
- We have moved ahead:-)
What advices do you give to teachers and pupils?
- You have to be more pedantic what to put in each trash can = waste you can burn, recycling paper or waste you can't burn.

sunnuntai 6. maaliskuuta 2011

Correspondence between Escola El Turo (Spain) and Länsimetsä school

Hello!

Here you have our answers to your questions.

1.Where do you come from?
We're from Montcada i Reixac, Barcelona.

2.Tell us about your school?
Our school is “Escola El Turó”. It's a small school. There are about 200 pupils.

3.Why did you start the 50/50 energy saving project?
Because our school is a “green school”.

4.How have you saved energy so far?
We switch off the lights when we do not need them or we just switch on half of the classroom lights because we try to use natural light.
We close the doors and windows to keep the rooms warm.
We switch off the computers and the monitors when we do not use them.

5.Do you have new ideas for how to save more energy?
No, just the ones we said in the previous question.

6.Have you been writing to your blog in the Internet?
Not yet, but we had a look at other school's blogs and wrote some comments.

7.If you have, can you tell what do you have in your blog?
We just have the school's mascot, which has the shape of a small mountain or hill. We also have a small article about a visit we did to the schools installations.

8.Have you had any special theme days or school gatherings about the 50/50-project?
No, we haven't.

9.What do pupils and teachers think about this project?
We think that the project is very good because we save energy and this is good for the planet.

We got also some questions and here are our answers:

What can you tell us about your school?
-Our school is quite big, we have about 260 pupils. The school building is yellow and made of wood. We like our school and think it’s the best in the world!

Why do you take part in the 50/50 project?
-We want to save energy because we are worried about the nature. And of course we want to the money too .

What do you do to save energy?
-There are many ways to save energy:
We don’t waste water: we wash our hands quickly and after P.E. we go to shower quick. We also check the toilet taps in case they leak.
We check that the lights are not on when not needed. We open the blinds in the morning and close them in the afternoon. And we don’t joke with the light switchs.
We close the doors and windows. And we air the classrooms very quickly.
We measure the indoor temperatures and check that they are just right: not too hot or too cold. And we control the radiators too.
We try to recycle things.

What do you do to keep warm and at the same time save energy?
-The winters are cold here in Finland so it’s important to wear warm clothes, woolly socks and jumpers are nice.
We try to avoid to overheat the radiators, the suitable classroom temperature is about 20 degrees. We keep the doors and windows closed. It’s very important to seal the window cracks so they don’t leak.

School gathering

Just before our winter holiday, on 24.2. the whole school gathered together to hall. We saw 2 energy saving videos and we reminded everyone to make sure that all the electrical equipments are shut down for the holiday week. In the afternoon 5 girls still checked the whole school. Let´s hope this will save more money for us!