North Manchester Girls Win Greener Schools Design Competition
15/05/2009
Pupils from North Manchester High School for Girls’ ASSEC (STEM club) were entered into a design competition for the North West Schools Science Fair at MOSI.
The girls, all Year 7 pupils, were set the challenge of designing a school with the minimum impact on the environment. The girls had to build a model to illustrate their ideas, create an eye-catching display and present their thoughts to judges at Manchester's Museum Of Science and Industry (MOSI) on 1st May. They were required to fully justify every design feature with sound scientific evidence and explain how their model would reduce the environmental impact of the school if put into practice.
Pupils worked together with our two Teach First teachers Aaysha Ahmed and Sally Wittrick, to investigate several contributing factors to the ecological running of the school.
The girls investigated wind speed around school to inform the positioning of a wind turbine, presenting results using text and graphs. Water conservation was studied resulting in a water butt to collect rain water combined with a compost heap beneath. This gave the school free water, which took heat energy from the decomposing compost, to be used in cleaning or heating the school. The roof spaces were converted to gardens, not only to provide an opportunity to cultivate food but also to provide insulation. The girls also researched paper making and recycled teachers’ waste paper to make their own range of different types of paper. These formed part of the display along with a podcast recorded to explain how the paper was made.
The end result was an incredibly well presented pitch, complete with a model of the school, incorporating a wind farm, a live roof top garden - complete with cress - and a their unique way of recycling teachers' waste to create homemade paper.
All pupils and staff involved put in an incredible amount of time and effort to prepare for the competition and made me very proud to have them representing the school and pushing forward the STEM agenda.
Pupils from North Manchester High School for Girls’ ASSEC (STEM club) were entered into a design competition for the North West Schools Science Fair at MOSI.
The girls, all Year 7 pupils, were set the challenge of designing a school with the minimum impact on the environment. The girls had to build a model to illustrate their ideas, create an eye-catching display and present their thoughts to judges at Manchester's Museum Of Science and Industry (MOSI) on 1st May. They were required to fully justify every design feature with sound scientific evidence and explain how their model would reduce the environmental impact of the school if put into practice.
Pupils worked together with our two Teach First teachers Aaysha Ahmed and Sally Wittrick, to investigate several contributing factors to the ecological running of the school.
The girls investigated wind speed around school to inform the positioning of a wind turbine, presenting results using text and graphs. Water conservation was studied resulting in a water butt to collect rain water combined with a compost heap beneath. This gave the school free water, which took heat energy from the decomposing compost, to be used in cleaning or heating the school. The roof spaces were converted to gardens, not only to provide an opportunity to cultivate food but also to provide insulation. The girls also researched paper making and recycled teachers’ waste paper to make their own range of different types of paper. These formed part of the display along with a podcast recorded to explain how the paper was made.
The end result was an incredibly well presented pitch, complete with a model of the school, incorporating a wind farm, a live roof top garden - complete with cress - and a their unique way of recycling teachers' waste to create homemade paper.
All pupils and staff involved put in an incredible amount of time and effort to prepare for the competition and made me very proud to have them representing the school and pushing forward the STEM agenda.
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