GO Green: Environment Week at Godolphin School

Published on isbi School News dated Tuesday 18th of October 2016

The pupils of Godolphin enjoyed an action packed Environment Week from 10-14 October 2016 The Bishop of Salisbury, the Right Reverend Nicholas Holtam, officially marked the beginning of Godolphin School’s Environment Week by leading the whole school ‘Green Prayers’ on Monday morning. A ‘Fair Trade Testing Centre’ enabled students to sample a variety of delicious Fair Trade food products alongside their counterparts – such as bananas, brownies and flapjacks. Students contributed to a pledge wall to share what they are doing to reduce their carbon footprint. An ‘Off Grid Day’ where staff and students were encouraged to be especially mindful of using as little electricity and paper as possible. Nissan Motors kindly loaned a Nissan Leaf and many pupils and staff enjoyed a test drive! Godolphin’s Science department ran an Inter-House competition to find out how much electrical energy they could produce with a minute of hard cycling on a stationary exercise bike. Participants were given the total number of calories that they had burned during their cycle, and this was translated at the ‘Energy Bar’ into the equivalent amount of time that their efforts would have produced when using their electrical appliance of choice. It was quickly apparent that using pedal-power to power a television, even for thirty seconds, took much more energy than previously thought. A variety of expert speakers on the subject of the environment. Tuesday afternoon concluded with an energetic debate on environmental issues between four eco-experts in “Any Green Questions?”. The panel included an entrepreneur in renewable energy generation, an energy industry professional, a Conservative City Councillor for Salisbury, and Salisbury's Parliamentary candidate for the Green Party. Girls from the Third Year to Sixth Form posed questions on climate change, fossil fuel dependency, and what the panel considered to be the foremost environmental issue for the girls in their lifetime. As part of Godolphin’s Inspiring People Series, Mr Stephen Tindale spoke on ‘Climate Change – Fact or Fiction’. An informative whole school assembly led by the Godolphin Green Group in which Sixth Form pupils showed lots of pictures of staff and students getting involved in the week’s activities. Godolphin pupils modelled their recycled clothing at the Fair Trade Fashion Show which concluded a busy week of events.