Action Planning with Room Tekau ma Wha

 

"Our vision is a place to play in nature. We want to build a treehouse" said Maddie

Measuring Our School Carbon Footprint - Electricity Usage

At the Cluster Meeting Nigel Zhang shared this presentation to help us understand how to measure our carbon footprint.

MAGIC - measuring our carbon footprint

The Eco Leaders started to measure our carbon footprint by tracking our school electricity usage.  We looked at the school power bills:

Our School Power Usage Over Time

We found it interesting that the power didn't seem to fluctuate too much during school holiday periods.  

We brainstormed everything that uses electricity at our school:

Teacher laptops

Lights

Air Conditioning

Microwave

Fridges

Dishwasher

Coffee maker

Speakers

Televisions

Heaters

Zip - hot water

Printers

Photocopiers

Oven

Stovetop

Wifi

Water Cooler

Hot Glue Guns

Sandwich Press 

Projectors

We brainstormed what we could do to reduce our power usage and how we could make that happen and recorded our responses in a Flipgrid video: How to Reduce Our Power Usage - Flipgrid

Do you have any ideas to reduce our school power usage?  You could record your own video on the Flipgrid or comment below ...

Sidenote: The Labour Government has just announced plans to reduce carbon produced by energy sources too: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/04/government-bans-new-coal-fired-boilers-the-second-largest-source-of-energy-related-emissions.html?cid=soc4:newshubfb

Update - Week 11:

What we notice: June used the most electricity - Jimmy. December did a dip - Michael. The electricity usage ranges from 3399 - 12562.

What we think: Electricity use is lower in school holidays and in warmer weather. Electircity is higher in term time and winter.

How might we reduce our electricity use? Turn off the fan when we leave the rooms - Emily.  Switch off the lights whenever we leave the classroom - Michael. Teachers heat their lunch at home and bring in a keep warm lunchbox - JImmy. Take advantage of natural sunlight and change to LED lights. Use sensors for turning lights off. Turn off screens at the wall at the end of the day - Jade and Stevie. Get solar panels - Jujar.

Acton - Jade to make school wide annoncement to turn off all electical equipment at the wall to try and save power over the school holidays. Other Eco Leaders to check their classrooms are switched off. Mrs Daniel to put in the notices.

Where can we see the Guiding Principles in Action?

 We're a GreenGold Enviroschool.  We follow 5 guiding principles - Empowered Students, Sustainable Communities, Maori Perspectives, Learning for Sustainability and Respect for the Diversity of People and Culture.

Where can we see these Guiding Principles in action?  We've made Flipgrid videos to answer this question.  Check them out: https://flipgrid.com/00b56e91