Pioneering efficiency for schools

04 May 2007

LOWESTOFT is to be the only town in the country today to launch a pilot project worth £140,000 to empower young people to reduce energy bills in schools.

Start up cash of £40,000 is being plunged in by the town's Make Your Mark campaign and Nesta (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) the largest single endowment in the country devoted exclusively to supporting talent, innovation and creativity.

And if the project is a success work carried out at Lowestoft College, Denes High and Poplars Primary schools will be used as a model throughout the UK for enterprise education, led purely by young adults.

The Lowestoft Energy Challenge is a year long project, beginning in September, which will involve three different year groups who will receive enterprise training.

Each group will set themselves up as environmental energy consultants for their school or college and in drawing expertise from local and national organisations, the students will work up a proposal to reduce their school's energy costs over the course of the next academic year.

They will then have a chance to bid for the Nesta challenge fund, worth £100,000 in order to implement their ideas.

It is intended that the project will become a blueprint for schools throughout the country with teaching packs circulated for each year group throughout national education networks so they can develop their own energy challenges.

The launch will take place at the Christopher Cockerill Centre within Lowestoft College at 1pm and will be carried out by Waveney MP Bob Blizzard.

Representatives from Nesta, Enterprise Lowestoft and businesses and organisations interested in support the project will be invited to develop a coalition already being fostered.

Saskia Kent, head of Lowestoft's Make Your Mark Campaign, who are jointly funding the project with Nesta said: “This project will put young people in the driving seat, fostering a set of enterprising capabilities and encouraging ideas for environmental change.

“It will also connect young people to local businesses, community project and realistic role models and mentors, raising awareness of careers and business opportunities in the local renewables industry.