1. Captivating Children Inspiring the up-and-coming green generation

2. Format for Workshop Introductions 5 mins Westmill Case Study 10 mins
Planning fun and engaging activities 15 mins
Sharing experiences of education work 25 mins
Closing mins

3. Alison Grunewald – WeSET Education Officer
Engaging Schools and Children
Westmill started as a group of local people who wanted to make a difference. Westmill Sustainable Energy Trust was set up to take forward some of the values that led to the building of Westmill. It is a charity dedicated to promoting renewable energy and sustainability, principally through education, but also through arts and local energy projects. WeSET is funded through 1% of the earnings generated from the renewable energy sales.

4. The five 1.3 MW turbines and 22,000 solar panels, generating roughly 17.6 GWh per year.

5. Community Owned
One of the largest community owned sites in the world, wholly owned by its 6,000 shareholders, most of whom are local.

6. Site Tours
WeSET’s main educational activity is running site tours. These are aimed at groups from primary schools right up to post graduate level. As well as education establishments, there are visits from the general public on Open Days, home-school groups, Brownies, Guides, Cubs and Scout groups. There are currently ten volunteer guides and five volunteer trustees providing all the tours and school visits for free. Several of these guides are retired teachers, lecturers and engineers. It is only in the last year of WeSET’s existence that there has been paid support for all this educational work. Two part-time employees, now work one day a week each. An incredible 10,000 visitors have been to the site in 8 years.

7. Marketing Named person at school / personal links Postcards Newsletter
STEM network
Link to curriculum / core subjects
Westmill started as a group of local people who wanted to make a difference. The five 1.3 MW turbines and 22,000 solar panels, generating roughly 17.6 GWh per year.
Brookes - Teaching maths outdoors
Association for Science Education – 4 to 7 Jan Reading University (£85 per day, £66 for Sat)

8. Schools’ Poster Competition
Challenge your pupils to design a poster, either promoting renewable energy or encouraging people to tackle climate change. The best entry will win their school a free coach trip to Westmill Wind & Solar Farm.

11. Interactive Compasses Anemometers Decibel meters Solar power meters
Laminated photos/info
WeSET have put together a large number of gadgets to use during visits to make it interactive as possible.
Count the number of revolutions of blades
Ask lots of questions

12. Sensory and Physical
Tours are sensory and physical as possible. Children are encouraged to use most of their senses - hear and touch as well as see the turbines and panels. “Can we actually touch them”
True and false game – all start in middle and have to run to one side or other if statement is true or false
Turn whole group into a turbine playing the role of different parts in the mechanism
Lynn Knapps – counting in Japanese example

13. Encourage physical interaction with their environment
Encourage physical interaction with their environment. Who can find out the name of the next turbine – run and find out. Ask children to lie down on their backs and look up at turning blades
Local schools got to choice a name for each of the five turbines – Huff and Puff, Wind Warrior, Gusty Gizmo, Zeus

14. Visual
Use as many visual aids as you can. Ask children what different ways we have of generating energy. As children name sources of energy give them an A4 picture of their answer. Get them to come out and stand in front of the group reinforcing what has been said. Children want to be one of those holding a picture. Then divide into fossil fuels and renewables.

15. Educational toys – learn by doing
Educational toys and games – learning by doing. Solar powered train – station master hat start and stop train
Wind powered cars – what angle do blades need to be to make it work best

16. Solar powered milk float
For large events there is even a solar powered milk float.

17. Prove to themselves
WeSET also go into schools and run assemblies and classroom sessions on renewable energy.

19. Major Events
Once every two years there is a major public event, such as last year’s community energy conference and open day
Ensure there is something for all children to do even the very littlest so that older members of family can go off on tour – Lego big hit

20. Collaboration with Others
WeSET collaborate with other organisations like the National Trust at Coleshill, who are local to our site. Once a year they run an Earth Summit, where a large number of local schools bring classes for a whole day of activities looking at different aspects of sustainability. We run one of the sessions on renewable energy within sight of the turbines.
This year we are developing links to the STEM network, who regularly get requests from schools for support.

21. Planning fun engaging activities
Either
Examples of successful engagement with children
What did you find engaging as a child
15 minutes

22. Experiences of education work
Whole group brainstorm
Challenges of working with children and schools
Small groups
Story of time when education session went well
What specific techniques or resources made that session work well
Whole group
Do any of the ‘solutions’ meet the challenges
25 minutes

23. What support is needed from CAG
Can CAG help provide resources or support to meet any of the challenges?