Pupils champion the environment
Top business brains have worked with pupils from two Warwickshire secondary schools to help with their mission to become ‘Eco Consultants’.
Students from Henley High and St Benedicts, Alcester, recently stepped into the world of business when they became ‘Eco Consultants’ for two days.
Pupils were given real life problems such as coming up with ideas about what would be required to take on the role of a ‘School Energy Champion’; thinking up innovative ways to obtain Eco-Schools Case Studies from schools, and designing their own clothes from waste materials.
Everyone quickly fell into the role of employees by designing ‘Energy Champion’ posters, recommending the use of ‘Facebook’ and ‘Bebo’ to gather Case Study information, and pulling out all the stops to hold a fashion show to display their designs.
This work is part of a programme for schools being run by EBP (Education Business Partnerships). The aim is to introduce students to the world of work, and to allow them to tackle problems posed by a real organisation or business. In this instance the employer was Warwickshire County Council, who set a number of real Eco-Schools challenges for the schools. On hand to help were also a number of people from the business world including HSBC, Jaguar and the Royal Navy.
At the end of the two days students were praised for their mature attitudes, the approach to their tasks, and the solutions they came up with. Barbara Golding, Eco-Schools Officer from Warwickshire County who set the tasks also judged the work on the day, and prizes were awarded to the best overall team at each school.
Cllr Izzi Seccombe, the county council’s Portfolio Holder for Children, Young People and Families, said: “This was a fascinating couple of days, allowing the pupils to both think innovatively about environmental issues, while also challenging them to prepare for the business world.”
Cllr Alan Cockburn, the county council’s Portfolio Holder for the Environment, said: “The two days were a fun exercise, but also extremely useful in getting a perspective from young people on the environment, and the ways they see useful in having the information presented to them.”
Posters are now on display in the reception area outside Warwick Library for the next three weeks.
For more information on Eco-Schools contact: Barbara Golding
http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/ecoschools