Highlands and Islands schools to receive renewable energy toolkits

Issued by Highlands and Islands Enterprise

Pupils in schools across the Highlands and Islands are to receive toolkits demonstrating the importance of renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Primary pupils at Balnain Primary School, Glenurquhart, Inverness have just taken part in the pilot project. The toolkit is part of the Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) initiative to raise awareness of renewable energy in schools.

Created by Pat Thornton and Liz Balharry of the Educational Resource Partnership, the renewable energy toolkit contains specially designed games, information cards, quizzes, model kits, experiments and activities to demonstrate the importance of energy efficiency and renewable energy.

The Educational Resource Partnership will also be running teachers’ CPD sessions over the coming months, to demonstrate how the toolkit works. Once these sessions have been completed, around 200 toolkits will be sent out to schools across the Highlands and Islands.

This is the sixth educational package that children from Balnain Primary School have piloted for The Educational Resource Partnership. According to Pat Thornton, who is part of The Educational Resource Partnership, and also a teacher at the school, their help is invaluable.

The renewable energy schools toolkit is part of a wider campaign which will also include training workshops for primary school teachers across the Highlands and Islands.

Margaret Livingstone, head teacher of Balnain Primary School, said: "Piloting this educational material has given us a great opportunity to enhance our Eco work within the school as cross-curricular teaching is important in the quest for a Green Flag award. This project also dovetails neatly with a local initiative to develop a Wind Farm at Corrimony and the school will be closely following this proposed development."

Further information can be found at www.educationalresourcepartnership.co.uk. 

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