Introduction
My name is Yntze, I’m 14 years old. I was born and raised in the Netherlands. I play football since I was 4 and I also love gaming. I will be the group leader in my group and i will edit this page, and also be answering our main question and 2 sub questions, and i will be asking 10 students about what they know about the energy saving at our school and making a summary of the answers. We don’t have a lot of experience with our topic but we will try our hardest.
Hi I am Willem and I will be answering a sub question and i will contact a company for methods to save energy. I play volleyball and would like to become a programmer when I get older. I have a medical problem where I have headaches on Monday and Wednesday so I will probably not see you a lot. I hope I can work together with you all.
The division of tasks
How can energy be saved at school in the most effective way?
The most efficient way to save energy at our school is probably to first of all, don’t have useless things that use energy be turned on, so no wasting energy. For example turn off the computers that aren’t used or to make sure you have a charged device with you, so that you don’t have to use the power supply at school. Another thing schools can do is to turn off the lights in a classroom that isn’t used. The final thing schools can do, is to make sure the doors and windows are closed if it’s cold outside because if a classroom gets cold energy will be used to warm it up again.
Our school policy
At our school we don’t have a policy for saving energy. I asked a few students and teachers and they said that they didn’t know if we had a policy for saving energy. At our school we don’t have specific rules for saving energy but it is taken for granted that you turn the computers off if you are done using it. I think we don’t need a set of rules for saving energy, because it is taken for granted at our school that we don't waste energy
How should the school policy be?
The first aspect of our school policy will be that there will be no energy wasted, the easiest way to save energy is to limit energy use. For example don’t leave the lights on when you don’t use the classroom. The second aspect will be, that teacher should be strict on that students have a charged device, this way students won’t have to use the power from our school. The final aspect will be that students make sure that they don’t forget to turn off computers that aren’t used.
Are students expected to implement any of these measures?
If the teachers make sure that they spread enough awareness about the policies it should be expected that the students will follow the policy at all times. The policy isn’t something bad for the students to follow so there should be no reason to break these rules, this is because the students won’t get anything out of leaving on the lights for example. These rules can be easily forgotten so, I suppose posters in the hallways, classrooms and computers not big posters but just little reminders to do the right thing.
Asking 10 students if they know any energy saving methods of our school
‘’Which energy saving measures of the school do you know’’? This was the question I asked 10 students. The first person I asked this question was Mathijs 14, his answer to this question was ‘’ I don’t really know much about saving energy at our school. The second person I asked Jhahin (14) said the same thing this continued for another 4 students Sven (14), Harmen (14) , Terence (14) and Willem (14). There were also 3 students who knew about the solar panels these were: Patrick (14) , Yliene (14) and Tico (13) . So there were only 3 students who knew about the solar panels on the school’s rooftop. Using solar panels is one of the better ways to save energy because you partially create your own energy. This will unfortunately not provide enough energy to supply whole school. This is due to the fact that scientists still don’t know how to collect all energy of the sun. Yliene also said ‘’ Our school uses lights that work with sensors this way you won’t accidentally leave on the lights. This helps a lot because the majority of energy waste is from turned on appliances, for example lights, computers. So to conclude, I have asked 10 students all the same question ‘’which energy saving measures of the school do you know?’’ and most of them replied with “Honestly I have no clue”. This doesn’t mean that our school doesn’t try to save energy, there is just a lack of awareness.
How does our school save energy at the moment?
Our schools saves energy by using solar panels. We at school have 732 solar panels, but even with so many solar panels it still isn’t enough to sustain the whole school with energy. This is because scientists haven’t figured out a way to harvest all the energy of the sun, this is due to that in the winter it is very hard to substain the school because of the short days and the lack of sun. The energy efficiency rate is between 11 and 15 percent, this is because of pollution which blocks 20%, so the solar panels alone isn’t enough for the entire school but it does save a lot still and in the long run it also saves a lot of money. Another great method of our school is that we use sensor lighting this means that the lights turn off when the sensor doesn’t detect any movement. This makes it so we don’t waste energy on lights.
Interview
I interviewed the janitors at our school and asked them if they could tell me about everything they knew about the energy saved at our school. They told me a lot of information about the solar panels, they told me that we have 732 solar panels these save around 56170 kWh of electricity per year this is approximately 26400 kg Co2. They also told me that the walls in our schools aren’t well insulated which means there is an increase in heat loss compared to if the walls would be insulated and the more we need to heat up the school the more energy used, so this is something our school should improve on. The final thing they told me is that all the schools in our area are planning to work together to catch all of the warm air around us and turn it into warm air to heat up all the schools in the area. This project will take some time, but it will be worth it because all that warm air would probably turn into rain if we wouldn’t use it.
The 3 best methods to save energy
to conclude the first method for saving energy our school also uses and it is solar panels you can see on image 1 our school from above you can see that we have a lot of solar panels on the roof of our school these are used to save energy the solar panels save around 56170 kWh of electricity per year this is approximately 26400 kg Co2. Solar panels are made of solar cells these cells collect tiny particles called photons these particles are located in rays of sunlight and they make the solar panels cells work.
The second method is got to do with the lighting, first of all we could use more natural light in the school so that we don’t need to use energy to power other lights. We will still have light for if it isn’t a sunny day but these lights will be LED lights, these lights are 89% more efficient than other lighting and last 25 times as long . In image 2 you can see a normal light bulb and a LED light bulb you can see that per light bulb you save up to 51 watts. So for our school we can save up to 17,85 kw/year.
The final method could be to reduce the energy we use on heating up the school this means make sure the doors are closed so no heat escapes. We could also insulate the walls so that there isn’t as much of a heat loss. In image 3 you can see an example of an insulated wall this wall is mainly insulated with fiberglass which is the most common insulator for walls. On average having fully insulated walls can save up to 15% on heating and cooling costs.
to conclude the first method for saving energy our school also uses and it is solar panels you can see on image 1 our school from above you can see that we have a lot of solar panels on the roof of our school these are used to save energy the solar panels save around 56170 kWh of electricity per year this is approximately 26400 kg Co2. Solar panels are made of solar cells these cells collect tiny particles called photons these particles are located in rays of sunlight and they make the solar panels cells work.
The second method is got to do with the lighting, first of all we could use more natural light in the school so that we don’t need to use energy to power other lights. We will still have light for if it isn’t a sunny day but these lights will be LED lights, these lights are 89% more efficient than other lighting and last 25 times as long . In image 2 you can see a normal light bulb and a LED light bulb you can see that per light bulb you save up to 51 watts. So for our school we can save up to 17,85 kw/year.
The final method could be to reduce the energy we use on heating up the school this means make sure the doors are closed so no heat escapes. We could also insulate the walls so that there isn’t as much of a heat loss. In image 3 you can see an example of an insulated wall this wall is mainly insulated with fiberglass which is the most common insulator for walls. On average having fully insulated walls can save up to 15% on heating and cooling costs.
Contacting a company
I have contacted a local company to see what they prescribed for the best method of saving energy they said that the solar panels helped a lot, because the energy we get from solar panels is energy we don’t have to buy. They also said that the sensor lighting helped but LED lights are the best to use for efficiency. The final thing prescribed was that we install timed tap systems so that we don’t waste energy for pumping water all the time.