EON Energy Experience

1. EON Energy Experience Palfrey Girls School

2. Introduction- What we did • To achieve fair and reliable results we chose four students from each year group to answer the questionnaire. • To choose the four students we used random sampling in each Year. • This would make our data representative of the whole school. • We also asked parents and teachers to fill out questionnaires so we could compare the views of adults to children. • The data collected from this questionnaire was processed into information that we could use to help us with our inventions and our debates.

3. Awareness and concern • The data we collected gave us some shocking results. • 45% of students were not concerned for climate change and 10% of students weren’t aware that climate is changing. • We presented some results as graphs and charts.

4. What we think causes climate change

5. What we thought • To tackle the lack of awareness and concern we decided to hold a debate to educate people more on the topic. • Here are some of our arguments:

6. Nuclear power AGAINST FOR It is possible to generate a large amount of energy with just one plant. The waste from nuclear power is extremely dangerous

7. It doesn’t produce Carbon dioxide or smoke so it does not contribute to the greenhouse effect. The source for Nuclear energy is Uranium which is not a sustainable energy source. It would run out in about 60 years. The technology does not have to be developed first. A small accident at a Nuclear power plant could cause a major disaster.

8. Wind power AGAINST FOR Wind turbines can help both the developed and the third world countries. The strength of wind is not constant and can sometimes produce no energy at all.

9. Wind turbines create a lot of sound. Each one can generate the same amount of noise as a car travelling at 70mph. The energy it produces does not cause Greenhouse gases. Some people find wind farms an interesting feature of landscape. Some people find wind farms unpleasant to look at and think that it ruins the countryside.

10. The Government • This was one argument everyone was really interested and enthusiastic about. ‘Should the government set limits on the UK’s energy production and consumption?’ • We watched a video clip of the prime minister Gordon Brown presenting his first major speech on the environment.

11. Gordon Brown Click here for video of speech

12. Our opinions • We think that the government should do more to limit the UK’s energy consumption. • The government should work together with schools to tackle the problems of awareness and concern. • Schools should have special days to educate people on climate change and to give pupils a fun time.

13. Our Ideas • When interviewing students from our school they suggested that we should have special days where we could learn about global warming. • This could be something practical, instead of just being swarmed with facts and statistics. • We suggested that we should have more fun filled activities like: experiments, projects, costume days and parties.

14. Different Charities “To make real headway on curbing our emissions, we need to act now. We do not have time for yet more commissions and reviews, for more political delay. The speech was sorely lacking in real measures to reduce our emissions.” Caroline Lucas, Green Party

15. "In March, Tony Blair committed the government to an EU target for 20% of Europe's energy to come from renewables. Since then the government - and particularly the dinosaurs in the DBERR (Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform) have tried to wriggle out of it. It is good to see Gordon Brown recommit to this and get the renewables revolution back on track." Keith Allot, WWF UK

16. "It's positive that the prime minister has raised the bar ahead of the Bali conference by talking about an 80% cut in UK carbon emissions by 2050. Oxfam believes that only an 80% cut in rich countries' emissions will be enough to stop the worst impacts of climate change. The world's poorest people - already hard hit by climate change - depend upon rich countries like the UK moving first and fastest to set a clear course for a low carbon economy." Phil Bloomer, Oxfam

17. Dragons Den • As part of Section 2 we decided to try to invent a device or gadget that would help save energy. • We agreed that the invention should be something simple and easy to use. • Here are some of our ideas.

18. Invention 1 • This device involves the small hard drive which monitors the electricity in a household. • The personal key ring bleeps when an appliance hasn’t been powered down.

19. Invention 2 • This invention involves giving children tokens for every thing they recycle. • They can then use the tokens to buy a treat. • This encourages children to recycle. • This in turn saves valuable energy in making materials like cans, cardboard and compost.

20. Invention 3 • With this gadget, the plug of an appliance is attached to the device. • The timer is set for any number of minutes up to one hour. • The appliance works as normal and after the minutes are up the device sets off a circuit breaker which automatically switches off the appliance. • So this gadget is specialised for Fans or Electricity Heaters. • This means you would not have to tend to the appliance, and if it was accidentally left switched on it would switch itself off after the timer is finished.

21. Conclusion • We found out that we need to raise awareness of climate change for young people. • With our research, our school decided that nuclear power is not the correct answer because it is not a sustainable energy resource. • We thought that wind power was a good option, but it carries some problems with it. E.g. noise, unattractive features.

22. That is the end of our Eon Energy Experience research report.