On 12th of March 2012 the Association of Municipalities Polish Network “Energie Cités” organized a conference summarizing implementation of educational project entitled EURONET 50/50 in Poland. The conference took place in Cracow and gathered school principals, teachers, representatives of city halls and representatives of organizations supporting environmental education of children and youths from all over the country.
The aim of the EURONET 50/50 project is to support fight against climate change by increasing energy awareness of children and by creating European network of energy saving schools. There are more than 50 schools from all over the Europe participating in the project, including 11 primary schools from Poland. The schools took up implementation of innovative 50/50 methodology which engages children in the process of energy management in their schools and which assumes equal division of achieved savings between the school and the authority financing its operation. The result is that everyone wins and the school community can devote its share of the savings to any purpose it chooses!
During the conference representatives of the Association of Municipalities Polish Network “Energie Cités” presented the idea of the EURONET 50/50 project and summarized its implementation in Poland. Afterwards, the teachers from schools engaged in the project spoke about the achievements of their pupils who joined energy teams and took up the task of analyzing and reducing energy consumption in their schools.
Presentations given by the teachers prove that pupils of Polish schools are very hard-working and creative. They approached their tasks with great enthusiasm. On the basis of measurements and observations, which they conducted with the help of the teachers, they assessed energy use in their schools and proposed a variety of solutions whose implementation will result in reduction of energy consumption. There were really plenty of ideas! The children labeled light switches, computers and water taps with labels encouraging to save energy and water and organized School Environmental Services whose members are responsible for switching off unnecessary lights and equipment. They also prepared bulletin board displays, poems, performances and poster exhibitions with tips how to save energy. As a result after first year of project implementation the schools managed to reduce their energy consumption on average by 4,3%!
Among the speakers there were also Mr Zenon Telman, Member of the Board of REBA – organization which collects waste batteries and accumulators from schools and kindergartens, and Mr Antoni Dragan from the National Association for School Support who presented project entitled “School teaching responsible energy management”.
During the conference there was also presented a movie showing implementation of 50/50 methodology in German schools. Moreover, the Association presented and disseminated among participants a guidebook for teachers entitled “Energy saving at schools”, which was developed and published in the framework of the EURONET 50/50 project. The guidebook contains propositions of lesson scenarios, variety of useful worksheets, descriptions of experiments, drawings and examples of labels encouraging to save energy.
The conference was accompanied by an exhibition of posters promoting energy friendly way of life, which were prepared by pupils engaged in energy teams established in schools participating in the project.
Agenda
