‘Green’ primary school pupils rewarded for their eco ideas

SCHOOLS in the island could soon become more sustainable thanks to the winning ideas developed by schoolchildren taking part in an eco challenge.

The winners of Guernsey Electricity and Guernsey Post’s Bailiwick Schools’ Eco Challenge received their prizes at GE headquarters and were given a tour of the control room. Front row, left to right, Vauvert Primary’s Holly Vennard, 8, Lily Griffiths-Ali, 7, and Willow Chapman, 8. Back, Amherst Primary’s Rory Le Poidevin, 9, and Mateo Saunal, 10. (Pictures by Adrian Miller, 26909850)

Five children from two winning teams were invited to the headquarters of Guernsey Electricity to receive a certificate and prize for their entries in the Bailiwick School Eco Challenge 2019, which included specialist crisp recycling bins.

The winning team for the nine to 12-year-old category from Amherst Primary School, Mateo Saunal, 10, and Rory Le Poidevin, 9, named the Solar Power Boys, developed two ideas, one that involved the use of steam to produce electricity and conserve coal and another using solar panels to help keep their swimming pool heated through the winter.

Rory said they had worked really hard to develop the ideas.

‘We really enjoyed taking part and coming up with our ideas,’ he said.

The winners with Dawn Gallienne, from Guernsey Post, and Jon Sexton, Guernsey Electricity's head of generation.Front, left to right, from Vauvert, Holly Vennard, 8, Lily Griffiths-Ali, 7, and Willow Chapman, 8. Back, from Amherst, Rory Le Poidevin, 9, and Mateo Saunal, 10. (26909846)

‘We thought up the idea for heating the swimming pool because during winter sometimes it doesn’t work and we use it less then.

‘It’d be good to use solar panels during the summer months to generate electricity that we could give back to Guernsey Electricity in return for electricity during winter.’

The winning team for the six to eight-year-old category from Vauvert Primary School, Holly Vennard, 8, Lily Griffiths-Ali, 7, and Willow Chapman, 8, also known as the Find and Collect Gang, came up with an idea to use crisp packet recycling bins at their school.

‘Our idea is to collect all the crisp packets from Key Stage 2 children and send them to be recycled,’ they said.

‘We would like special crisp recycling bins to do this and send them to Terracycle UK.

‘By doing this Vauvert will become more green.’

The two winning teams were given a tour of Guernsey Electricity’s control room, as well as receiving £1,000 for their school to put towards an eco project of their choice.

Jon Sexton, GE's head of generation gives the winners a tour of the control room.(26909820)

The idea for the challenge came about as a result of the installation of the largest solar array in the Channel Islands at Guernsey Post’s headquarters.

Joining forces with Guernsey Electricity, the two companies set the competition up to encourage schools to be more sustainable.

Guernsey Electricity’s generation manager Jon Sexton said he was pleased with the ideas they had seen.

‘It was really good to challenge children on how to make their school more sustainable,’ he said.

‘It was great to see them get creative and engage in concepts that could actually work.’