A two-year project to deliver a teachers' toolkit on reducing energy and waste has been completed.

Funded by the Local Strategic Partnership and delivered by Harrogate Borough Council's Environmental Strategy Unit, the aim is to get schools to commit to reducing their energy and waste by 10%.

Councillor Richard Cooper, Harrogate Council's Cabinet Member for the Environment said that the project completion is timely as from 1 October each school in England and Wales has to have 'Display Energy Certificates'.


He said: "More than half the district's primary schools have used the toolkit so far. There are now six lesson plans together with procedure notes and work sheets that explain climate change and actions that the children can take to reduce their carbon emissions. We have produced all of this on a CDRom, which will be sent to every primary school. The schools can then borrow interactive equipment that brings the toolkit alive with working examples of renewable energy generation, models and experiments.

"Bishop Monkton Church of England Primary School was one of the first schools to use the toolkit and it saved 20 per cent on its 2007 electricity bills compared to 2006. This was achieved by the pupils undertaking an energy audit of the school and deciding on 10 simple energy saving actions that every member of the school agreed to abide by."

The project also helped Pannal Primary School to raise funding for a wind-turbine making it the first primary school in the county to install this green technology.

(CD/JM)