Let’s Go Zero school action:
Comberton Village College – Cambridgeshire, England
Comberton Village College is a rural school in Cambridgeshire. The school inspires its students by transforming their views on sustainability, they have taken many steps to do so, including:
Explore the Let’s Go Zero map to see where else teachers, students and school communities are taking action to become zero carbon by 2030.
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Sean Sycamore
Deputy Principal
To limit paper waste, they have moved students to digital devices instead of textbooks. After COVID, students started campaigning to reduce the school’s waste. They are challenging everything from food to fork, analysing packaging and composability of the materials used in the school’s kitchen.
The school has innovated its heating with two underground pumps for heating. The project takes two years to build but it had little to no disruption to the classes aware of the student’s priorities.
By installing retrofit infrastructure, the school aims to decrease its carbon footprint and involve its students as much as possible to increase awareness of energy sources and the impact of a rural school. But also, creating an appreciation for the different aspects of the build, the design, engineering, and the application, motivating them with their different interests.
The school has also invested in installing solar panels and fully converting to LED lighting for the buildings. The plan is to display them for students and parents to appreciate.
There is a student-led Green Group and an Environmental Group. They campaign for different environmental initiatives around the school, including reducing waste, increasing composting, and tree planting. They have also been introduced to professionals in their fields like chief engineers that motivate students to discover new career paths aligned with sustainability.
While construction work was taking place, the school maximized its opportunity to install 10 electric vehicle charging points, in preparation for the 2030 electric vehicle target with the possibility to increase to 60 charging points soon.
The main aim was to involve their students in all the various Retrofit projects around the school, inspiring them towards green careers and encouraging them to learn from real-life scenarios.
In geography modules students review case studies of green energy principles which are recorded and set as a learning tool for the rest of the school.
Let’s Go Zero is a campaign led by Ashden.
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