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About the

Prepared by Carbon Detectives Project

June 2012

The information and views set out in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Communities. Neither the European Union institutions and bodies nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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Executive Summary The Carbon Detectives programme ran from May 2009 to May 2012, with the strategic objective of encouraging greater integration of sustainable energy education in schools across Europe such that there was a resulting increase in energy literacy and a reduction of CO2 emissions. The programme achieved this objective through: • Enhancing teachers’ and pupils’ understanding of intelligent energy use within the context of

sustainable development and climate change. • Providing tools to enable schools to measure CO2 emissions. • Enabling schools to reduce CO2 emissions through personal behaviour and systems changes. • Increasing understanding of the need for intelligent energy decisions to be made at a European

scale.” The programme operated in ten EU countries through a main partnership contract with five partners each of which subcontracted activities in another EU country. Below are listed the contracted partners and their subcontracted countries:

• Austria • Bulgaria • Czech Republic • Hungary • UK

• Germany • Lithuania • Slovakia • Romania • Ireland

The main programme output was a web based tool to support schools in understanding their carbon footprint and developing carbon reduction action plans. The website was launched in March 2010. Over the three years the partnership delivered the following main outputs:

• Teacher training • Teaching materials – support for teachers and curricular materials • An interactive website with carbon calculators and action planning capabilities • Two annual competitions across the partners plus an international competition

The programme has directly involved nearly 7,000 schools and over 100,000 pupils in the 3 years it has been operating. The website and associated tools remain available for any schools to use for the next two years. As a partnership we are proud of the Carbon Detectives programme, our schools and the tools and services we have been able to offer. We believe that currently registered schools and those wishing to take advantage of the free resources over the coming years have and will benefit from the sensible and simplistic approach we have taken and the outstanding materials available. This final summary document outlines some of our main highlights and should be read in conjunction with a visit to the Carbon Detectives website.

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Contents Executive Summary ............................................................................................................... 2 Contents ............................................................................................................................... 3 The Carbon Detectives: Project aims and objectives.............................................................. 4 Carbon Detectives – our achievements ................................................................................. 7 Highlights from the partners – Austria ................................................................................ 11 Highlights from the partners – Germany ............................................................................. 14 Highlights from the partners – Bulgaria ............................................................................... 14 Highlights from the partners – Lithuania ............................................................................. 18 Highlights from the partners – Czech Republic .................................................................... 18 Highlights from the partners – Slovakia ............................................................................... 20 Highlights from the partners – Hungary .............................................................................. 20 Highlights from the partners – Romania .............................................................................. 24 Highlights from the partners – UK ....................................................................................... 25 Highlights from the partners – Ireland ................................................................................. 29 Lessons learnt ..................................................................................................................... 29 Success stories .................................................................................................................... 30

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The Carbon Detectives: Project aims and objectives

The programme partners set out to support schools across 10 EU countries to measure and reduce their Carbon emissions. The strategic objectives of the programme was “to encourage greater integration of sustainable energy education in schools across Europe resulting in a more energy literate society and a reduction of CO2 emissions.” This was to be done through meeting the following specific objectives: • Enhance teachers’ and pupils’ understanding of intelligent energy use within the context of

sustainable development and climate change. • Provide tools to enable schools to measure CO2 emissions. • Enable schools to reduce CO2 emissions through personal behaviour and systems changes. • Increase understanding of the need for intelligent energy decisions to be made at a European

scale.” The partnership was made up of contracted partners:

• UK – programme co-ordinator • Austria • Bulgaria • Czech Republic • Hungary

All partners in the above countries engaged with and contracted some work to be delivered in an additional country. These additional sub contracted countries are listed in the order related to their contract with the partner countries above:

• Ireland • Germany • Lithuania • Sovakia • Romania

The project was focused around a website and supporting tools and as such was very much providing the tools to an already engaged sector. The programme was also actively engaged with teachers and schools and programme operators in all ten countries made visits to schools and ran teacher training events. The website was a complex hub and spoke system, supporting tools which included Carbon footprints and linked action plans, web based questionnaires and materials appropriate to each country of operation. A basic website using UK data was also produced to allow schools from other EU countries to take part and make use of the materials. This was generic information rather than that specific information supplied to schools within the participating countries. See Figure 1 below:

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Figure 1: Basic website available to all European schools Our partnership worked to deliver tailored content to schools. To keep consistency the partnership developed and agreed the core content and adapted from this to form the national materials. The UK homepage is provided in Figure 2 below to highlight the increased content available to schools within the participating countries.

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Figure 2: UK Carbon Detectives homepage We experienced tremendous support from national governments who in many cases were involved in shaping our projects and promoting the programme. Our avatars were created very early on in the programme as it was felt crucial to develop materials that demonstrated the breadth of the age range (8-14) that the programme was looking to engage with. These characters were well received across the partnership by the children and teachers alike. The partnership feel that they offer an excellent opportunity to allow future EU schools programmes to continue to use them and the existing imagery.

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Carbon Detectives – our achievements As a partnership we are proud that: • the topics we have covered, the content of the project and all our

materials have been, and continue to be, received with enthusiasm,

• the website is available in eight languages and tailored across ten countries, its design is appealing and both teachers and pupils

• the website is available as an online resource and offers all the planned functionality,

• the didactic material (designed to help teachers deliver lessons on the topics with the pupils) and the background material (to help upskill the teachers’ own knowledge) is excellent,

• we have connected with a large number of schools, and many of these personally through training events, school visits, and assemblies,

• the website facilitates inter-school connections through the use of the image board which allows communication across national and language boundaries,

• schools can compare their school footprint with other schools’ participating in the programme,

• we have had two annual competitions and all ten countries have participated in competitions at the national level

• we have run two international competitions, the first included a week of activities for pupils from nationally winning schools across the partnership,

• despite the economic climate across Europe, we have been successful in securing excellent and appealing competition prizes (both at national and international levels).

Most importantly we can evaluate the impact of the project, as • reaching more than 100.000 pupils across Europe, • raising awareness of climate, CO2 and energy issues and increasing the knowledge of pupils and

teachers alike, • achieving positive attitudinal changes in pupils, as attested by their actions and also by the

feedback we have received. The most positive feedback for the partners was when we met the pupils (either in their own schools or during award ceremonies). Pupils were enthusiastic and positive, with an eagerness to tell us and each other what they have done in order to decrease their CO2 footprint. They were comfortable discussing topics related to climate change, energy use, food miles and how the little actions they can take add up. Their enthusiasm and involvement is also visible in the plans they have for continuing on the road, on which the project started them. International competition and award ceremony – 2011 An international competition/ceremony took place in Litoměřice, in the Czech Republic from the 18th -21st July 2011. Six schools, the national winners in the 12-14 years age group, from Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania and the UK participated in the event. Each school was invited to send five participants, either three pupils and two teachers or four pupils and one teacher.

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The event took a great deal of organising and places of interest to visit were investigated and put forward to the partners, along with the venue for further discussion. In the months preceding the event the UK partner visited Litoměřice to verify the venue, accommodation and activities were appropriate. The trip was very intensive but extremely successful, allowing work the programme operators to finalise the programme for the event and ensure preparation was complete. A teacher / pupil booklet, and an activity book were prepared for the pupils and respectively contained preparatory information and a variety of activities.

Figure 3 Teacher and Pupil Booklet The international event started on a Monday evening with dinner and was followed by an introduction to all participants about the town of Litoměřice. The presentation was given by Katka Kulich, the translator for the event and local resident. A short team building activity (see Figure 4) followed in which the pupils where challenged to build a tower using only spaghetti and jelly babies that could support a golf ball. The tallest tower won a prize.

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Figure 4: Team building activity at Litoměřice Whilst away the pupils worked on their posters and presentations which would form their entries into the international competition. They presented the projects using the materials they prepared and then teachers and pupils each cast an individual vote for the school they felt had achieved the most in reducing their CO2 emissions. They were not allowed to vote for their own school. The international winner was decided based on the votes of the pupils and teachers only. The group also visited the historic town of Litoměřice, the mining town of Most and the open cast mine of Varna. Activities based around the three Carbon Detectives issues - energy, food and transport were also completed. These took place at a local school where the pupils built solar ovens to cook potatoes; drew pictures of what a Bishop in the 1500’s would have used for energy, food and transport; and built and raced paper boats.

Figure 5 Pupils completing activities in Litoměřice The international competition took place on the second evening with the award ceremony taking place after dinner. Martin Eibl, the representative of the EACI, attended and presented the prizes. The three day event allowed children and teachers from different countries to meet and discuss common issues and concerns. However the main theme was one of celebration and knowledge sharing and feedback from all involved highlight that in this respect the programme achieved excellent results. The first place prize was jointly awarded to the Austrian (Hauptschule Munderfing) and Romanian (Scoala Cu Clasele I-Viii Palanca) schools, for which they each received a cheque for €600. Each of the remaining schools was awarded a prize of €200 in recognition of their hard work and to help continue their efforts in reducing CO2 emissions in their schools.

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Figure 6 The national winners at the international competition

Figure 7 Activity Book National winners in the older age group from six countries (Austria, Bulgaria, UK, Hungary, Lithuania and Romania) participated in the event, which included a programme of energy, transport and food related activities.

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Figure 8 - Bulgaro-Austrian friendship during the Award Ceremony in Litoměřice, Czech Republic

Highlights from the partners – Austria The national Ministry of Education disseminated information about the project and especially the two annual competitions to all relevant Austrian schools and as a result we received 58 competition entries; most entering very late (in April/May).

The 14 best schools as selected by an independent panel of experts received prizes. 8 schools were honoured at an award ceremony that took place at the museum of natural history in Vienna and Dr. Günther Pfaffenwimmer from the Ministry of Education gave the certificates and credit notes for the prizes to the teachers and pupils. The atmosphere was celebratory and the event was very well received. After the award ceremony the pupils were given a guided tour through the museum, which was enjoyed very much.

Figure 9 - Article in the Bezirksrundschau “Mein Bezirk Braunau” nr. 32

The first years (2011) winning secondary school, HS Munderfing travelled to Litoměřice in the Czech Republic to compete internationally and join other schools in a programme of activities. The Austrian school won the international competition, see Figure 9 above.

Austria were particularly successful in obtaining sponsorship for the competitions, with the second year competition having more sponsor interest as momentum in the country continued to build. In the second year, prizes included a solar cooker, one day in an energy camp for 30 pupils, vouchers

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for a sports shop, so the school could buy for example bicycle-accessories or bike stands, 5 energy-experimentation boxes, 5 environment board games, vouchers for biological foods.

Consolation prizes as nature-posters, rulers, key fobs, magnetic bookmarks, colouring books etc. were provided to all participating schools.

In addition, the Austrian team ran an “exceptional competition” for schools which involved the insulation of 200m2 of roof space as the prize. The winner was determined by a short description on how they would use the prize and why they were the best candidates for it. Building plans and photos were used to determine suitability for the insulation. The winning school, “VS Mauerbach” primary will have the insulation installed by ISOVER directly.

Teacher training events took place throughout the country. But despite substantial support from the Ministry of Education, other stakeholders and positive feedback from teachers who had attended training the team found it difficult to secure teachers attendance. The Austrian team overcame this by visiting schools directly instead of asking teachers to leave school to attend training. The new approach was extremely successful and increased the levels of engagement throughout the schools that were visited and allowed some pupils to also be trained. The Austrian partners held five training events with pupils attending, two of which were held in schools. They reached seven classes and 242 pupils. 14 teachers also took part in these training events. Headmasters at these schools disseminated the project information to all their teachers allowing us to reach 214 teachers this way.

All in all there were 26 teacher training events and 605 teachers and pupils trained in Austria during the programme.

An external evaluator, Virag Suhajda, visited three Austrian schools across the country in 2011 and received much positive feedback from schools:

“I find it again and again interesting to hear, what other schools are doing. Sometimes there is the "AHA experience", we have done this also and then you find good new ideas.”

“The teaching materials are good and practice-oriented. The pupils have fun working with the CO2-calculator.”

“The action and the support service of the project have been excellent.”

The partners produced promotional leaflets as shown below to promote the programme and engage schools.

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Figure 10 – 1st and 2nd Leaflet

The partners final leaflet was issued at the close of the project to showcase the national winners in the second competition period.

Figure 11 - National winners of 2011/12 competition

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Highlights from the partners – Germany In very close collaboration with the Austrian partners, the German partner intensively promoted the programme and the competition from Autumn 2011. This resulted in 13 schools participating in the competition. The best 3 schools were awarded with money prizes, all participating schools received a certificate.

Highlights from the partners – Bulgaria The Bulgarian team were extremely successful in engaging schools across the country and had good levels of registrations and activity throughout the programme. The involvement of TIME Foundation project team in the development of school projects (visiting, consulting, devoting technical and artistic resource) was much anticipated and needed. The team devoted a lot of time and effort in visiting and supporting schools and visited 8 pilot schools in 6 regional towns in the country.

The Bulgarian team spent considerable time at the start of the project obtaining energy data for the programmes carbon calculator. The Bulgarian calculator is based on surveys of 34 schools; from 7 different Regional Inspectorates in Bulgaria.

Since its launch a number of updates and modification have been made to the website. New pages have been added to disseminate information and case studies about the 2010/2011 Bulgarian competition winners. We have also created a number of temporary pages to support short term initiatives and activities such as dissemination of a transport survey and evaluation questionnaire.

The projects’ didactic materials have been fully translated and adapted to the Bulgarian Educational system. The materials were specifically laid out for Bulgaria and are very much liked by the teachers. We have received very positive feedback from teachers using them. The adaptation process included interdisciplinary links to the Bulgarian National Curriculum. Each section (subject from the materials’ content) was linked to the existing subjects in the Obligatory Educational Content thus allowing teachers to easily use the Carbon Detectives materials in what they teach.

Figure 12 - Sofia Award Ceremony 28 May 2011

The first national competition saw 19 projects (6 primary and 13 secondary schools) compete, involving 287 pupils coming from 10 different towns.

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The Bulgarian partners accompanied pupils and teachers from the Bulgarian winning Secondary School, language school “Geo Milev” from the town of Dobrich, to the international Competition held in Litoměřice, Czech Republic in July 2011, see Figure 8.

For the second national competition, the Bulgarian team visited 2 pilot schools in 2 regional towns. The final result was that 26 projects (5 primary and 21 secondary) competed. The total number of pupils involved in the project work was 509 coming from 15 different towns in the country.

To celebrate the successes of the schools, the Bulgarian team organised three National Award Ceremonies. One in the sea capital of the country Varna, one in the capital Sofia and one in the second biggest town on the sea coast - Burgas.

The Varna event hosted 90 guests (pupils, teachers and parents). The event took place right in the centre of town, in the National Astronomical Observatory and Planetarium “Nicolaus Copernicus” with the support of the Education Department in Varna Municipality. The Sofia event had 50 guests (pupils, teachers and parents) and took place in the biggest secondary school in Sofia (32 Secondary School for Foreign Languages - St. Kliment Ohridski). The Burgas event hosted over 70 guests (pupils, teachers and parents). The event took place right in the centre of town, in the Culture Centre “Sea Casino” with the support of the Education Department in Burgas Municipality.

Figure 13 - Varna Award Ceremony 14 May 2011 The Award Ceremonies were very well reported in the media. All participating schools received designer made framed certificates, while all teachers and pupils also received a personal certificate. The teachers and pupils were very proud of their achievements and took many photos.

The Bulgarian team attracted sponsorship for the first competition from two companies (ENEL, CEZ), while additional prizes were also provided in the form of educational materials, bio cotton t-shirts and bags produced from waste vinyl from road advertisements billboards.

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Figure 14 - Burgas Award Ceremony March 2012

The Bulgarian team trained 524 teachers over 15 training events. The teachers attending were from subjects including the Culture and Education Spheres “Natural Sciences and Ecology” and “Civil Sciences and Civil Education” e.g. “Man and Nature” and “Geography”. Feedback shows that;

• nearly 80% of the teachers said the training was very interesting

• over 97% said TIME Foundation team were excellent

The Bulgarian team are confident that news of the programme and its materials have reached 1500 teachers as it has been promoted in the newspaper of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Science.

There are 273 Bulgarian schools registered, representing more than 14% of the total number of available schools in Bulgaria.

Since the launch of the website in Bulgaria:

• 83 schools have generated a Carbon Action Plan and completed at least one action.

• The total number of action included in Action Plans was 1339

• 52 schools have indicated 744 actions as completed

• At least 47 schools have reduced emissions by 5%.

• 123 schools have completed level 2 of the calculator

• There are 664 completed questionnaires

• There have been 1772 downloads (mainly didactic materials and teachers’ training materials) from the teacher’s corner.

The Bulgarian partner, TIME Foundation, spent eight months at the start of the project liaising with the Education, Youth and Science in order to secure an official letter of support. This was essential for the project to be successful in Bulgaria. The official Letter of Support (letter number 1105-57 from July 2010) included a letter requesting Regional Inspectorates on Education to cooperate.

The team approached the municipalities, signatories of the Convent of Mayors. The Municipality of Gabrovo (town in Central Bulgaria) directly supported the programme by co-organizing the teachers’ training event in the region.

The Bulgarian partner contracted a media expert and this approach proved very productive with extensive coverage across all media types at the national and regional level with 5 press releases and 7 articles. The programme’s competition award ceremony was also promoted on 4 national radio stations.

In addition, the Carbon Detectives from one school in Sofia took part in a TV show for young people broadcast by Bulgarian National Television. The programme appeared twice more on TV; the International Award Ceremony in the Czech Republic and one on the second year competition in Burgas.

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All Bulgarian schools participating in the Carbon Detectives Competition were presented with Certificates. Three types of certificates were designed: for schools, for teachers and for pupils. A total number of 957 Certificates were printed (on Ecolabel certified cardboard).

Figure 15 - Certificate after first) competition (2010/2011) A famous Bulgarian young artist was contracted to draw four symbols representing the Renewable Energy Sources framing the certificate (water, sun, fire and wind). The Certificates presented to the school management were individually framed. This form of acknowledgement for the efforts and work was very much appreciated with schools, teachers and pupils taking many photos with their beautiful Certificates. The working design files were distributed to all partners.

Figure 16 - Certificate after second competition (2011/2012)

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Highlights from the partners – Lithuania The first meeting of the Bulgarian partner with the Lithuanian partner was very inspirational and led to a successful and supportive partnership, resulting in:

• A translated the Carbon Detectives website and relevant content into Lithuanian

• Lithuanian Carbon Footprint Calculator data

• Translated and adapted didactic, training materials and questionnaires

• Developed and delivered teacher training in the country

o Kaunas – 6 teachers, 21st December, 2010;

o Vilnius – 13 teachers, 21st January, 2011;

o Vilkaviškis – 21 teachers, 2nd February, 2011.

• Achieved formal support from the division of Non-Formal Education and Education Support at the Lithuanian Ministry of Education and Science

• Presented the project at a “Sustainable Energy Planning in Municipalities - Challenges and Opportunities” conference and representatives of local municipalities (including persons from the education divisions of municipalities), local companies and partners from Norway

• Ran a national competition in 2010/2011

• The Lithuanian winning school participated in the International Award Ceremony.

Highlights from the partners – Czech Republic The Czech team ran 21 training events and trained 265 teachers. About 3276 teachers across the Czech Republic were invited to download teacher training materials from the programme website.

The first international competition took place in Litoměřice in Czech Republic and our Czech partners were instrumental in identifying the event location and ensuring an extremely successful week of activities.

Figure 17 - Graphic design of the didactic and teacher training material

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The Czech partners produced and distributed 6 flyers and 6 articles throughout the project period, some of which have been provided below:

Figure 18 - Leaflet 3 – Information about launch of Czech language website

Figure 19 - Leaflet 6 – Presentation of the competition winners

Competition entries for the Czech Republic was lower other partners despite the extensive promotion undertaken by the partner. Although 34 schools initiated the competition process, only nine completed entries were received.

Sponsorship obtained over two years of fund raising was used to obtain prizes for all competition entries, including kits using solar energy, appliances for measuring the energy efficiency, solar chargers, books and notebooks from the recycled paper with CD logos and a “CO2OL school certificate”.

The three winning schools in the older age category and the two competition entries in the younger age category also received a financial prize (120-200 EUR) to be used to support activity connected with the aim of Carbon Detectives project.

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Highlights from the partners – Slovakia Cooperation between the Czech partner and their Slovakian counterpart has been excellent throughout, thanks to an existing long-term partnership with ŽIVICA. ŽIVICA has been working in the environmental education field since 1999, so they were able to use their credit and rich database to involve as many schools and teachers as possible.

A major advantage of working with Slovakia is the closeness of both countries with its shared language and similar legal and institutional backgrounds.

There were 13 teacher training events throughout Slovakia and 457 teachers were trained.

Whilst unable to participate in the first round of national competitions, the Slovakian team were successful in securing sponsorship from VEOLIA (1,000 EUR) which also carried the programme logo on their website. The Slovakian partners received 7 competition entries and at the second international competition the Slovakian school ended up a well deserved third place.

The programme had a presence on national radio and other media (websites, newspapers) and at the international Czech-Slovak conference “Strategic Planning and Creation of partnerships in education towards sustainable development in schools”.

Highlights from the partners – Hungary In order to support the schools in Hungary with the Carbon Detectives the Hungarian partner stepped up efforts to organize and provide teacher training across the country. This had the added benefit of generating visible results and increased presence for the programme across the country.

The team sent letters to the schoolmasters in every Hungarian primary school and provided information about the project, including the commendations of the project’s main patrons, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generation and the Secretary of State for Education.

The work and promotion over the initial launch year ensured that 15 competition applications were uploaded onto the website in the first national competition. Sponsorship from SCA Packaging Hungary provided money and gifts to the value of HUF 500 000 (€1750) to reward national entries.

However, the Hungarian partners also secured the in-kind support of Energiaklub, the Védegylet and Öko-pack which provided some small gifts and information materials. In addition, Péter Novák, a famous media personality, and András Petruska, a young singer have shared their ideas and offered their time on a voluntary basis to ensure our success.

The Ministry of Education also patronized the competition and the whole project. The Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations, and the Ombudsman for Future Generations, the main patron of the project offered the room for Award Ceremony for free.

An award ceremony for the first national competition took place in June 2011 and was attended by 50 pupils and their teachers for ten schools across the country.

Peter Novak, the famous artist and “culture worker” supported the project and took part in the event too.

He is very popular and the kids were very happy to get the Best Action Plan rewards in two age groups from him. The remaining schools received a Diploma for their outstanding work too.

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The whole event had a very good atmosphere. Thanks to the sponsor company (SCA Packaging Hungary) the teachers, the schools and the students got lots of presents. Some of them, coming from small villages, had never been to Budapest so that day was really special for them.”

Figure 20 - Some pictures of the Country Award Ceremony in 2011:

We have given certificates of merit to the ten “winning” schools, and certificates of participation were electronically sent to the teachers to personalise and print for each pupil in the CD groups.

The first prize for the winner in age group 8-11 was a day-trip to Budapest, where they visited the educational centre of the Energiaklub (called “Village house”). The prize was provided by the Energiaklub NGO. The schools also received a board game each, and some little gifts.

The winning secondary school travelled to the Czech Republic and took part in the successful international ceremony where they achieved second place.

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Figure 21 - Certificates for competing schools

The Hungarian team ran a second competition and received 10 applications (4 from primary and 6 from secondary schools). A second national award ceremony took place at the building of Commissioner of Fundamental rights in April 2012. The 10 groups of 3-5 students arrived from all of the country. The Hungarian winner also won the second international competition. A tailored certificate was given to all competing schools.

Figure 22 - Photos from the 2012 award ceremony

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Visits to ten schools over the project life allowed the Hungarian partners to form the following general impressions:

• The teachers are enthusiastic and happy with the opportunity to deal with environmental issues in their classes and really liked the didactic materials and the possibility that with this project they can involve the whole school.

• The headmasters support the project as it raises the recognition of their school and help them improve the schools’ Environmental Education Program.

• In each school the CD students were open to the Carbon Footprint issues, they became well informed and the families of the pupils were involved as well, especially with the topics of food miles, healthy food and heating habits at home.

• The students liked the characters on the website and worked with the questionnaires.

In summary the site visits were very useful for us but also for the CD groups and teachers, who have been given additional support from the CD team at the end of the school year this way.

In addition to the above, our research indicates that there were more schools actively working through the programme. They were actively doing project work, but had not recorded action plans.

The Hungarian team have had the support of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations (since 2012 Deputy Ombudsman for Future Generations of Commissioner for Fundamental Rights), and made useful connection with the new leaders of Ministry of Education.

Figure 23 - Promotion of 2010/11 competition winners

The data used for the carbon calculators proved difficult to secure in Hungary as most schools are operated by the local municipalities and therefore do not possess factual information on their energy bills. To find the persons knowledgeable regarding these data and to obtain their co-operation was extremely difficult.

Teacher training started in the autumn of 2010, with 10 events taking place in the 2010-2011 school year. Feedback from these initial events was used to update the training materials and a further 7 revised events took place in 2011-2012. Over these courses we trained 211 teachers and 2 university students in Hungary and ran a single event in Romania with 27 teachers. 211 of the 240 teachers trained during these events completed feedback:

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− 70% of the teachers said, that training was very interesting

− 84% were satisfied with the lecturers' knowledge

− 68% of them said that she/he will be able to use the activities in their work

The Hungarian partners have produced press releases, articles and flyers (see Figure 23 and Figure 24) in support of the programme and participated in 2 radio broadcasts.

Figure 24 - Carbon Detectives competition promotion

Highlights from the partners – Romania A Romanian partner was engaged from the very beginning of the project, and this has been instrumental in the successes observed for the programme here. The Romania formally adopted the Carbon Detectives programme in September 2009. CPD approval was granted in 2010 by the School Inspectorate of Mures County and Casa Corpului Didactic (CCD) from Mures and Covasna County), allowing teacher training from the Hungarian team to take place in October 2010 and February 2012 in line with the second competition.

In addition, the Romanian partners ran four training events with the help of program collaborators; Mures County School Inspectorate and the Casa Corpului Didactic from Mures and Covasna County.

During February and March 2011, weekly drop-in meetings were offered for small groups of teachers at the Educational Centre of Focus ECO. These meetings offered assistance in using the CD website and registration. Teachers from Transylvania were also helped to manage the web.

There were 12 competition entries in the first national competition. Certificates were sent to all the competing schools with different versions for the teachers/schools and for the pupils. The winning secondary school took part in the international competition in Litomerice, where they won. The primary winners received a three-day trip to the Information and Educational Centre provided by Adrianu Mic from Mures county and board games on ecology and a teacher's guide.

The second year only had 4 school applications, the winner of which gained a one-day visit/ fieldtrip to the Environmental Educational Centre from Adrianu Mare. The other three schools received board games and vouchers for organic food.

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Highlights from the partners – UK A Carbon Detectives programme already existing in England at the time of the project inception. This programme looked to measure eight areas of sustainability – energy, transport and food among them. The original programme required schools to obtain all the data for completion of calculators and where schools had completed less areas they would appear higher up the league table because the Carbon emissions were deemed to be lower.

At project inception the UK team pushed for a more supportive approach which would be easier for schools to initially engage with. Using BRE’s energy modelling experience the team developed a series of “typical” energy use patterns for schools with different services; e.g. all electric, primary, secondary, swimming pools, full catering facilities. We also modelled urban and rural located schools for the transport element of the calculator.

The UK is unique in Europe with the amount of information it has to determine these models. To allow schools across all ten countries such information had to be identified, processed and developed for each country. This took considerably longer than planned and resulted in delays in launching the website.

However, feedback from schools using both the original and simpler (for them to use) calculator has shown that the time was well spent and the programme had significantly higher numbers of completed calculators and action plans than the previous English programme.

By working closely with the Department for Education during the programme development the UK team were able to secure their backing and to transfer the schools from their programme to the new Europe wide one.

The UK team adapted the programme curricular materials (see Figure 25) and appointed a curricular specialist, an experienced teacher and current school governor to actively input into project outputs. Additional materials were also developed and made available for download from the website. These included pupil activities (such as word searches and puzzles) and Carbon Detectives resources (such as checklists and meeting minute’s templates). See Error! Reference source not found.

Figure 25: Curricular materials provided for download

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In addition, the UK team were still operating a national scheme for schools called Sustainable Learning which had been operational for over five years and had around 4,000 schools registered. Due to funding shortages both the English Carbon Detectives and the Sustainable Learning programmes were no longer being funded by government and both operators were looking to private sector sponsorship.

The launch of the European Carbon Detectives programme allowed schools working within either of the existing UK initiatives to transfer across to this newly funded programme. BRE sent emails to all registered schools on these programmes advising that they would move across. All schools could opt out of this transfer if they wanted to.

This movement of active schools from unfunded programmes to the Carbon Detectives meant the programme had around 4,000 schools join in the first months of the web launch. Nearly 3,000 more schools would join the programme over the following two years the website was available and the programme operating.

Figure 26: Spot the waste activities for children

The UK team ran competitions in both 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 and secured sponsorship for prizes to award all winners. Certificates were issued to all schools entering into the competitions. In 2010/11, despite 114 schools initiating the competition process on the website only 11 entries were submitted (6 secondary 5 primary schools). The majority of competing schools had been working on at least two of the three Carbon Detectives key areas with the most common being energy and food. Many of these schools had also been working on these issues over a number of years.

Sponsorship of prizes for the national competition was secured from four companies. Marshalls, a large landscaping company, provided two prizes of planting and landscaping equipment to the value of £3000. Land Securities, a commercial property company, provided two school energy audits. BoHo Green, property developers, provided the third place prize for our higher age group winners of four fuel call car kits. Whilst The Helping Hand Company, manufacturers of reaching aids and litter pickers, provided 30 bespoke litter picking kits plus teachers resources for our lower age group third place prize. Certificates were issued to all competing schools in recognition of their efforts.

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Entries were shortlisted using a scoring sheet developed by the partners and then assessed by external judges and sponsors to determine the top three schools in each category. The winner of the secondary school category Oakwood Park Grammar School was entered into the European wide competition held in Litoměřice, Czech Republic in July 2011.

Figure 27 - Pupils and staff from Oakwood Park Grammar School with Martin Eibl and Zsofia Nagy (r)

Throughout the period of the second competition the UK teams were out visiting schools and running ‘Journey of a Chocolate Bar’ assemblies. This resulted in 58 schools initiating the competition process on the website, and 18 submitted entries.

Figure 28: Three word searches were produced by the UK team

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The UK team also developed dedicated materials to coincide with other wider activities including Climate Week 2011, where a week-long ‘Climate change and sustainability’ cross-curricular scheme of work suitable for Key Stage 2 pupils (7-11 year olds) was developed and made available.

Continuous feedback from teacher training events allowed the team to adapt training materials and the web content to ensure constant improvement to the programme offering. A flexible training approach was highly successful and the team completed 23 events, delivering training to a combined total of 478 delegates. We have been able to train both teachers and trainee teachers across the UK.

Comments from UK schools included:

“We feel that this is just the start of a long journey to reduce our CO2 emissions. Thank you for inspiring and motivating us”

“As a successful eco-school we welcome all programmes for development of sustainable development and think this is a most valuable programme”

“The CD staff were VERY helpful and its a great idea and way to engage pupils”.

The UK also produced articles, press releases and 5 programme flyers, see Figure 29 and Figure 30

Figure 29 – 2nd Leaflet – promoting the 2010/2011 competition

Figure 30 - UK 2011 Competition winners

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The programme co-ordinator had several advances by other countries to get involved including France, Norway, Canada and the Middle East. However due to the nature of the programme and the time required to produce nationally relevant carbon calculators and action plans it was not possible to include them in the programme without sufficient finance to cover our costs.

Highlights from the partners – Ireland Despite economic difficulties in Ireland and changes in both national leadership and programme operators the programme was available for schools in Ireland and teacher training events were run.

The website is fully operational and adapted to the Irish context and whilst the initial take up was slow it was beginning to gain traction towards the end of the programme period.

All schools in Ireland were made aware of the programme through sending two flyers to each school and following this up with email contact directly from the programme partner.

Lessons learnt The partners took significant corrective actions throughout the programme to ensure the success of the programme and enable schools to engage fully with us. The main lessons the partnership have identified are detailed below

• Make participation as easy as possible

• Longer timespan to allow programmes to establish in the market would be beneficial

• Provide immediate feedback to schools whenever they complete an interaction on the website

• Align key activities with the school year timetable

• Focus on hands on school engagement (not just web based)

• Offer also printable versions of online material

• Look for synergies with other similar projects

• Award ceremonies (where pupils can share) after the year is needed

• Schools will access different aspects of a project depending on need and level of knowledge – this needs to be planned for

• Plan for more incentives for the schools to participate

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Success stories International Carbon Detectives competition and award ceremony

The 3 days event took place in the summer of 2011 to allow children from the national winning secondary schools to meet, share ideas and celebrate their success.

After considerable research we settled on a small historic town in Slovakia very close to the main coal mining area. Lots of effort across the partnership was required to work up event ideas and a programme of activity, as well as identifying location, accommodation that would be acceptable even to countries with very strict regulations. The event was originally not in the contract and the partners needed to secure additional financial support. Partners ideas were enhanced to increase the value of the programme and we wanted to cover carbon issues, cultural variation across the partnership and celebration.

The event looked to celebrate the success of the schools and to allow them to present their project for consideration to the European wide competition. Holding the event increased the project profile nationally within all participating countries. The days were structured to allow pupils to learn more about energy issues but the main aim was to allow a focus for communication and improve cross cultural links, share ideas and gain confidence.

The presentations and award ceremony focussed on rewarding the hard work the school has put into their project and expressing the project teams’ appreciation of the work done. Pupils presented their project, action plans and successes.

At the end 3 days children and teachers were swapping contact details and communicating across national languages. Friendships across borders were established.

Activities during the three days were connected to carbon issues or cultural diversity. The host town is a major historical centre, an open caste coal mine nearby was visited to show the impact of the coalmining activities.

Three countries – Romania, Hungary and Austria travelled together to reduce Carbon. On the trip out there was little mixing and communication but on the return trip there was significant communication and mixing.

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Success stories within the non partner countries

Performance of some non partner countries – Romania, Lithuania and Slovakia - has been exceptional with high levels of activity and interest and excellent relationships between the partner and non-partner contacts.

In Romania the programme quality and content engaged schools with the result that their winning secondary school (in the first year of the competition) won the international competition. Teachers were active in the teacher training offered. Romania generally tends to be good at participation in international projects and they have good national experience in this type of programme. The whole school system is centralised which makes reaching teachers much easier if government support is indicated.

The Hungarian partner already had an established and successful partnership with Focus Eco, the Romanian partner, and was working on other programmes together prior to this project.

The Bulgarian partner experienced difficulty in securing a non partner neighbouring country or a country with a similar language. Attempts was made to create partnership with several countries including Greece, Romania and finally with Lithuania. Regardless of the distance and the cultural differences the Lithuanian partner had a real commitment to the project and delivered results above expectation; culminating in twelve competition entries from Lithuania during the first competition year and their national winner’s participation in the International Award Ceremony that took place in the Czech town of Litoměřice (17-21 July 2011). For more information please refer to Bulgarian country report.

The Czech partner worked closely with a Slovakian organisation that they already had an established partnership with. This meant excellent cooperation from the project start. The level of funding was an issue and only the existing partnership with SEVER allowed contracts to be established.

There a very few NGO’s operating in schools in Slovakia, and the Slovakian partner is well known and established in this area. They have excellent contacts with schools in the country and are an active member of the EcoSchools programme. ZIVICA has delivered 13 teacher training sessions with 457 attended teachers and pupils. For the second round of competition they have manage to secure sponsorship from VEOLIA. The 1,000 Euro financial prize has made the participation in the competition more attractive in Slovakia as a result 7 national competition entries were received. The Slovakian International competition entry has received the third highest score.

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3. Educational materials

Didactic and teacher training materials have been well received across the partnership. Adaptation to each country was essential. Schools are using the materials and once embedded in the education planning in a school it is likely to remain in use beyond the programme lifetime.

Feedback received via questionnaires, school visits and teacher training events all demonstrate that the material is appreciated and fills a gap in the available support to schools.

The five partner countries reached 11,489 downloads of this material by the end of the programme (23rd May 2012).

4. Teacher training activity

As a partnership we have exceeded both the number of events and the numbers of individuals trained. Partners exceeded targets for delivering teacher training events: Main Partner Countries Number of events Number of participants

Austria 27 605

Bulgaria 16 524

Czech Republic 21 265

Hungary 17 231

UK 22 478

Partnership Target Numbers 98 1,960

Partnership Actual Numners 103 2103 Sub contracted Countries Number of events Number of participants

Germany 4 114

Lithuania 3 40

Slovakia 13 457

Romania 5 98

Ireland 2 4

Partnership Target Numbers 15 250

Partnership Actual Numners 27 713