After the year 8 students had identified the eco-problems in their school, they started drawing up their ideas and re-working and prototyping them, until they’d found the best solution. They also wanted to consider and analyse their designs from a user’s point of view.
At Lord Lawson of Beamish School in Gateshead, food packaging was one of the biggest problems they identified. The Year 8s wanted to transform the food containers used by their canteen so that they could be made from recyclable materials. Currently they used plastic and polystyrene boxes, which the students said added substantially to their school’s carbon footprint.
While redesigning them, the pupils considered the need for strength, so the new boxes would be easy to hold, eat from and store. With the help of designer Sebastian Conran they also prototyped some innovative shapes and formats including a takeaway pasta dish which holds a knife and fork in the clasp, making it more practical to use.
Geography students at Lord Lawson of Beamish also realised the way they travelled to school made a big impact on their school's carbon footprint. With architect Michael Atkinson they designed a new system of bike sheds that could be fitted into the new school building the school aws planning to build.
Water wastage was a problem at St Hild’s Church of England School in Hartlepool. The students concentrated on reducing this waste by designing a curved, transparent extension to the school’s roof to collect rainwater, channelling it onto an electricity-generating water wheel and then on into storage tanks. This way everyone could see how much water and energy were being saved and this would in turn encourage them to save even more.
The winning school
Acklam Grange Middle School from Middlesbrough won first place (and £25,000) in the ECO Design Challenge Awards for the best researched and designed idea.
Their proposal included solar panels to generate energy on-site, filtration ponds to clean the waste water from the canteen and vegetable patches to supply food.
Illustrations and models of how Acklam Grange could look in an eco-friendly future
The design legacy
Across all schools, Year 8 students and the teachers who helped them, agree that working through a design process and using design tools like brainstorming and visualisation and prototyping have taught them a lot.
They have learnt how to:
- Research an issue they care about and validate their findings
- Practice thinking about and designing fun, imaginative things and services
- Think about their effect on the environment and find solutions
- Get people talking and ask the right questions to analyse a project. Is this a good idea? Is it feasible? What else could we do?
- Eco design days are now a regular event in some of the schools that took part in the ECO Design Challenge
Since 2007
Since the Dott07 project ran at Tanfield School the school has:
- Continued to develop the garden as part of the curriculum for Year 10 students to help them achieve Youth Achievement Awards. They have not built the bubble yet, but they do have a school garden.
- Had visitors from a school in Newcastle, Australia. Its Head Teacher and Deputy Head Teacher wanted to speak to the students and teachers who had been involved in the Dott07 ECO Design Challenge to see if they could implement the project in Australia. They were particularly impressed with the student participation and the developments that have taken place as a result.
- Gained support from the local allotment association and Durham County Schools Meals Service. The garden won’t produce sufficient vegetables in the near future to supply the whole school but it is something they are working towards.
The Eco Design Challenge winner, Acklam Grange school, is also being rebuilt under a Building Schools for the Future project which the students have ensured includes space for continuing eco-sustainability education. Thanks to the £25,000 award from the Eco Design Challenge, Acklam Grange's BSF project will include a geodesic dome that will enable future students to learn about the environmental impact of their school and their behaviour.
Students who took part in Dott 07 have also played an important role in developing the brief for BSF architects, ensuring that the build follows an eco-friendly building process and that demolition materials are recycled and that sustainable materials are used where possible.
The geodesic dome, which will be provided by Solardome, is powered by energy from the sun and will have a tropical climate.
Solardome Vega (7.75m geodesic dome) courtesy of Solardome Industries Limited.
Students at Acklam Grange were involved in other Dott 07 projects including Urban Farming. You can read more about the Urban Farming project in our case study.