Transition Island Blog

Osborne Middle school  has received a new award as the first Climate Champion School.

First in the World!

Today (Friday 4/4/08) Dame Ellen MacArthur presented this Award, which sprang from inspiration in local company Vestas, the world’s leading supplier of wind power solutions. They are challenging schools to achieve three targets.

Firstly, to install sustainable energy equipment. Osborne Middle got a PhotoVoltaic (PV) panel via a grant from Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream, matched with the same from the Low Carbon Buildings programme.

Second, they raised enough funds to install a PV panel on the roof of a school in India. That school is in a village which has no electricity at all. The PV electricity will give them lighting this year, and then power computers next year.

Third, they have jointly developed (with Vestas) a lesson on Climate Change and Sustainability, which will be presented at both schools.

and more!

Also nice about this is that whole thing helps the FairTrade Agreement that Ben and Jerrys have with their workforce in the Vanilla plantation in India. And more, the PV cells were installed by a local Island company Engenius.

opinion

Vav Simon, leader of Transition Island said “I am amazed that the Island is so forward-thinking about these things. This is a great initiative, and it is wonderful that an Island school has got the first Award. Also, it is very pleasing that the new Climate Change and Sustainability lesson plan was developed here.”

action

Get your school involved!

Two Isle of Wight schools may show a lead to others across the South East.

Gurnard and Cowes Primary schools introducing more local produce and are making their meals healthier. They also encourage pupils and the community to engage in cooking activities.

This is harder than it seems, as modern timetabling prevents most practical cooking by ringing the bell just as it’s getting interesting. There just isn’t time to finish within a period.

The Soil Association promotes organic food growing in the UK. Their ‘Food for Life Campaign’ helps pupils learn about seasonal foods and understand the ‘food miles’ issue.

A team from the Soil Association visited the schools on 25 February where they sampled the food, met teachers and students including the school cooks and othos involved in the project.

The schools hope to be recognised as one of the nine Flagship Schools by the end of March.

Opinion:
We are really pleased at this project -
it will help parents as much as children.

Growing your own will help families become more independent when food prices start to spiral. This will be due to the cost of oil increasing as we hit Peak Oil, and causing fertiliser, pesticide, and transport costs to rise. 

A comment received recently…

“I have read your blog with interest. I agree that rural schools are vital for rural communities, however I also believe that urban schools can be just as important to their communities.

Our local primary school, Greenmount Community Primary School, has been earmarked for closure under all three options of the council’s reorganisation of education despite it being a vibrant and popular school. It was one of few on the island that have been oversubscribed in the past few years.

Greenmount is in the heart of Ryde and 74% of its children walk to school…” [more]

our feeling

It seems that too many people from the Government Minister down are blaming everyone else, and no attempts to find ways to compromise or create new opportunities from the situation are being reported. Community action does not always find excellent answers, but ideas are what is needed at the moment.

Saturday 9th February: Greenmount protest leaving from Greenmount school to the Esplanade.

NOTE: the Samba Protest in Ryde this Saturday has been changed from the afternoon to 11am so that it will not clash with the rally in Shanklin at 2.30pm.

Rural schools, like rural Post Offices, are social centres for scattered comunities.

They provide a venue for meetings, a place for information and a timetable for activities. They are more important in rural environments than in town centres.And yet, because they cost more to maintain, the Government is forcing them to close them. This is done by legislation, budget changes and ‘guidance’ in the name of cost-efficiency.

But is quality of service as important? Not the service provided by the core business, but the quality of service received by the community - a different measure altogether. How much would it cost to replace these ‘peripheral’ services to the community?

The divide between urban life and rural life seems to widen when abstract edicts cut swathes through country life. And yet most towns-people want to experience the countryside at the weekend. It’s not that they hate it - perhaps more that they don’t understand it, a famous biologist once told me.