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Melbourne Girls’ College: Educating for sustainability

Khaleej Times presents a weekly feature on the finalists of the $4-million Zayed Future Energy Prize and how their projects would impact their immediate communities as well as those around.

Interactive renewable education centre of Melbourne Girls’ College in Victoria, Australia

A sustainable future driven by green energy is what the world desperately needs to trim emissions. What are the solutions and technology which could make the world a cleaner, safer place to live for the future generations?

The $4 million Zayed Future Energy Prize, managed by Masdar in Abu Dhabi, recognises and rewards clean innovators of our time. The prize is awarded annually to a large corporation, a small and medium enterprise, a non-governmental organisation, a Lifetime Achievement recipient and up to five high schools from five different world regions.

The evaluation for the prize consists of a four-stage process. Each category is evaluated on four criteria: impact, innovation, leadership and long-term vision.

On its way to becoming carbon-neutral ... students of Melbourne Girls’ College in Victoria, Australia, think about personal energy consumption in a hands-on, tactile manner. — Supplied photos

The award ceremony will take place on January 19, 2015 in Abu Dhabi. We profile some of the contenders/finalists who have made a green difference. This week we feature Melbourne Girls’ College, a finalist in the Global High Schools, Oceania category.

Name: Andrew Vance, Sustainability Coordinator

Finalist: Melbourne Girls’ College (MGC)

Prize Category: Global High Schools, Oceania category

Melbourne Girls’ College (MGC) is a leading government secondary school of 1,200 students with a passion for sustainability in Victoria, Australia. The school has a strong culture of environmental awareness.

The school proposes building a curriculum-integrated, publicly accessible and interactive renewable education centre with several types of renewable energy generation. In addition, the project will help the school on its way to becoming carbon-neutral by 2020.

How did your school hear about the Zayed Future Energy Prize? What inspired you to enter?

The Zayed Future Energy Prize was promoted in Australia by the Australian Association of Environmental Education and in our own state by Sustainability Victoria. The Department of Education and local council also supported our entry.

We were inspired to enter as we have an aspirational goal to be carbon neutral by 2020. We have several plans to reach this goal, but the funding and scope of the Zayed Future Energy Prize has inspired us to think more creatively.

Give us details of the challenges to energy access/sustainable education that affect your region/community/academic curriculum?

Eighty-five per cent of electricity generated in our home state of Victoria is supplied from coal. Our curriculum clearly articulates the environmental consequences of burning fossil fuels and the need to find alternatives.

At Melbourne Girls’ College, we aim to inspire students to be critical thinkers and solution-based problem solvers. As such, we have piloted a world first programme that engages students with the energy crisis by literally turning themselves into human generators. By installing pedal-powered generators in our gymnasium and delivering curriculum that explores electricity generation, our programme challenges students to think about their personal energy consumption in a hands-on, tactile manner.

What is your impact on the world and how will winning the prize impact you (your students, your community, your school)?

While we have celebrated some success with our pedal generators and modest solar array, the Zayed Future Energy Prize will enable MGC to install an interactive renewable energy plant that enables students and the wider community to investigate the potential of emerging renewable energy technologies such as wind, hydro, pedal, rowing and solar power. The prize will enable us to meet a significant component of our energy needs with renewable power, making the 2020 carbon neutral goal a realistic target.

When would you plan to start your project and how long do you think you will take to complete it?

We have sourced quotations for the wind, hydro, solar and rowing generators described in our application. We can commence work as early as February 2015.

Work has started on the curriculum materials that would be associated with the generators and also the interactive displays that will engage the wider school community with the project.

We anticipate that the technology will be installed within the year and classes can begin to utilise the associated curriculum in 2016.

What roles and responsibilities will be assigned to students and how will they benefit from this engagement?

This prize will provide authentic learning opportunities for students who will be able to measure the performance of a variety of electricity generators in one location and draw conclusions about the potential for the energy source to replace fossil fuels in the future. They will be responsible for monitoring the school’s energy consumption and generation and to make regular reports to the community via the Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative.

As a finalist of the Global High Schools category, what is your school’s long-term vision for educating students on sustainable practices?

In Australia, there is a focus not just on educating about sustainability, but to actually ‘educate for sustainability’. The Zayed Future Energy Prize unlocks potential for us to put in place this philosophy by reducing our reliance on fossil fuels whilst simultaneously engaging students and the community with a novel teaching approach to energy. We firmly believe this programme will inspire reflection on current energy use practices and ultimately, achieve a two-fold benefit of reduced energy consumption and increased generation of clean, renewable energy. We hope the new curriculum enabled by the prize will inspire future scientist who may uncover the solution to the current energy crisis.

— news@khaleejtimes.com