Brainstorming ideas for potential solutions was the next step. Local designers, architects, engineers and undergraduate design students helped out in schools across the North East, encouraging Year 8 pupils to think of ways their school could work better for the environment. They wanted the pupils to think about more than just redesigning how their buildings looked.
Rachel Deller, Designers into Schools Co-ordinator for Dott 07, worked with the students from Acklam Grange School in Middlesbrough: ‘For many people there is a confusion about what design is and what designers do,’ she says. ‘One thing we wanted to show was that drawing, using Computer Aided Design, making models, etc. are all simply tools. Design at this stage is the ideas you have and how you communicate these ideas to other people. The other things are important, but come with practice. Nick also worked on getting the team thinking with the right side of their brains in a creative way and letting their imaginations take over.’
Thirty designers went into schools in the North East to help students work out how to make their school more sustainable. They included product designer Sebastian Conran, who visited Lord Lawson of Beamish School in Gateshead, and new graduate Sarah Bray, who encouraged students at George Stevenson School in Newcastle to do charades to show their design idea because it helped them explain them better than writing or drawing.
Taking creative, innovative approaches to researching information, compiling it in easily accessible and useful ways helped the students feel they were working in an efficient way to help tackle their school’s carbon footprint.
The eco impact of schools
- Transport accounts for 20% of the average school’s carbon footprint
- Schools dispose of more than 60,000 tonnes of waste each year
- Former education secretary Alan Johnson pledged £110m over three years to make schools carbon neutral