Antinuclear

Melbourne Girls’ College’s original approach to becoming carbon neutral

Melbourne Girls’ College pedals toward carbon neutral status with outdoor cinema, solar installations, ABC News, 19 Feb 16  774 ABC Melbourne  By Clare Rawlinson An all-girls Melbourne high school is on its way to becoming the first Victorian school to go carbon neutral.

Melbourne Girls’ College is working towards carbon neutral status through the installation of solar arrays and energy reduction projects, spearheaded by the school’s Sustainability Collective.

The passionate young environmentalists are hosting an outdoor cinema powered by bicycles and ergo machines on Friday, to share their quest with the public and draw attention to the true cost of energy.

The students will pedal all day to charge the cinema batteries for the screening of movie Oddball, as well as the power for coffee carts and popcorn machines.

“The idea behind it is to show people what a watt hour is and how much electricity goes into these events,” former student Ruby Wynn Williams said.

Sustainability coordinator Andrew Vance said the first step towards the school’s goal of carbon neutrality was awareness. “It’s really easy to burn some coal to watch a movie but it’s completely out of sight and out of mind,” he said. “When you get on the bike and pedal two watts, it’s like an epiphany.”

Reputation for environmental sustainability

The school’s reputation for environmental sustainability has already earned it acclaim through a major international competition, the Zayed Future Energy Prize. In 2015 it was selected as one of five schools globally to receive the competition’s $US100,000 funding grant for sustainability projects.

The majority of the prize money has been spent on converting the school’s permanent power source to solar, with the installation of a 33kW solar array on one side of the gymnasium roof.

It plans to cover the other side of the roof with community-funded solar arrays.

“[Each person] who buys a panel will get their name on it … so they can go and look at how much carbon they’ve offset and the equivalent in trees,” Mr Vance said.

“That will get us close to our carbon neutral goal.”…….http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-19/melbourne-girls-college-pedals-toward-carbon-neutrality/7180684

February 20, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | energy, Victoria