Go Green Day Assemblies underway

Since Monday, assemblies have been held to inform pupils about Go Green Day.

Monday started with the Year 7 assembly, Year 8 on Tuesday and below is a photograph of Year 9 presenting their assembly this morning. The Year 10 Go Green Day assembly will be held tomorrow (Thursday) and the Year 11 assembly will be held on Friday.

A Prezi presentation was shown to pupils in the assemblies. Click here to view the Prezi.

Thank you to all pupils who took part in the assemblies and to the Year 12 and 13 pupils who helped to prepare the pupils for the assemblies.

Young Reporters for the Environment Winners!

Congratulations to the Year 7, 8 and 9 pupils who have won the international accolade of 'Young Reporters for the Environment'.

The pupils produced a video news report on the Eco-Committee's litter pick in the local river and the surrounding area.

The year 7, 8 and 9 pupils involved were:
Connor Stratton - Presenter
Daniel Dimblebee - Editor
Nia Evans - Research and interviewing
Robert Lewis - Research and contributor
Sophie Williams - Research and interviewing
William Davies - Presenter

Click here to see the story on the Keep Wales Tidy website.

And click here to see all the other international winners on the Young Reporters for the Environment website.

The pupils will be receiving an invite to the celebration event at the Royal Welsh Show in Builth Wells, which will be taking place on Tuesday 22nd July, where they will introduce the video news report and be presented with their prizes.

The judges were all very impressed with the video, the way it was presented, the messages, the enthusiasm of everyone involved and the quality of the video itself. They said it was an obvious winner right from the start! And way ahead of all the others!

Huw Edwards, the BBC News reader, said about the video: "Good production, well-written and delivered script, good sound and vision, smooth editing, pertinent interviews, and a good strong environmental purpose to the video. Really excellent!"

To view the video, click here.

Video of Media4Schools Awards

Unfortunately, we were pipped at the post by Lewis School Pengam, but the pupils who created 'Don't be a Waster, be a Saver' beat off stiff competition to become finalists in the Media4Schools awards and enjoyed a ceremony to celebrate young media talent in the Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay.

The awards were presented by Cowbridge Comprehensive year 13 pupil Sophie Gallagher - she did an incredible job.

Click on the picture below to view a short video of the day.

http://youtu.be/rea0PIzPqUI

Media4Schools Awards

Pupils are eagerly awaiting the results of the Media4Schools awards. The awards ceremony is being held at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay.

The video 'Don't be a Waster, be a Saver', has been shortlisted for the best edited film. 

Also, Sophie Gallagher has been given the privilege of presenting the awards - pop lwc Sophie!

Cowbridge pupils' success highlighted at Eco-Schools conference

A Wales-wide conference for secondary schools was held today in Cardiff Bay to bring Eco-Committee members together to investigate ways of safeguarding our planet for the future.

Pupils from years 8, 9 and 11 took part in workshops to come up with ideas for 'actions' to suggest to their school's Eco-Committee in the areas of water, energy, transport, school grounds and global citizenship. They also had the opportunity to meet with pupils from schools across Wales and share ideas. Cowbridge Comprehensive School pupils were praised for achieving their third Green Flag and for producing the 'Don't be a Waster, be a Saver!' video which was shown during the conference as an example of a project that has brought the school together under one common goal in a fun way.

Many speakers and organisations took part in the conference including Peter Davies, the Commissioner for Sustainable Futures, who spoke about the importance of making sure young people's voices are heard and the important role Eco-Schools Wales plays in facilitating this.



Peter Davies, Commissioner for Sustainable Futures

Lukas Wallis and Cameron Marlor taking part in a Welsh Water workshop



More than 3,500 views for Eco-Video

Unbelievably, the video for 'Don't be a Waster, be a Saver!' has attracted more than 3,500 views on YouTube in a little more than a week.

It has also attracted a lot of attention on Twitter with re-tweets from important environmental organisations such as Eco-Schools Wales, Cynnal Cymru, Climate Change Commission for Wales and Size of Wales. Also pupils and Cowbridge-based organisations such as the HubCowbridge and The Gem have been tweeting as well as Eco-Schools Netherlands which tweeted in Dutch about the video!

The aim is to reach 10,000 views - please support us by encouraging as many people as possible to watch the video on YouTube and give us the thumbs up! Just go to Don't be a Waster, be a Saver! And, you never know, if we all ask Al Gore to re-tweet about the video, he may just do it!

World-wide success for Eco-Video!

Cowbridge Comprehensive School's new Eco-Video is being watched across the world, and there are even comments on Twitter in Dutch about it!

 

The song, entitled 'Don't be a Waster, be a Saver!' was written by the school's Eco-Committee and the ideas for the video came from them too.

Everybody has played their part, from year 7 pupils to the senior leadership team, and from the canteen staff to the caretakers.

The video was released on Friday (14th of June) on YouTube and already more than 2,500 have viewed the video. Take a look by clicking on the image below...

 

 

 

Going for Green

Pupils at Cowbridge Comprehensive School are going for their third green flag today.

The Eco-Committee will be presenting information about their work over the past two years to Julie Giles from Eco-Schools Cymru. To view the Prezi presentation they will be giving just click on the image below.

They will also be showing the new Eco-Song, previewed yesterday on the blog! To view the Eco-Song 'Don't be a Waster, be a Saver!' click here.

Click on this image to view the Prezi presentation they will be giving

Pob lwc!

Preview our new Eco-Schools video

Be one of the first to see the new Eco-Schools video by clicking on the image!

Eco-Song Release

There's a frenzy of anticipation for the release of the new Eco-song and Video. The song, entitled 'Don't be a Waster, be a Saver!' was written by the school's Eco-Committee and the ideas for the video came from them too.

Everybody has played their part, from year 7 pupils to the senior leadership team, and from the canteen staff to the caretakers.

The video will be released on Friday, to be shown as part of our Eco-Schools inspection visit, in the hope that it will help us win our third green flag. It will also be available to see on YouTube.

 

Cross-curricular Eco-Schools project gets underway

Almost one hundred pupils stepped into the school's state of the art recording studio on Friday to take part in a cross-curricular project.

 

They put their vocal and instrumental talents to good use to record an original version of the current number one single, Daft Punk's 'Get Lucky'. Even the teachers got involved to produce a track which will be released to the school in June.

 

The words were re-written by the school's Eco-Committee and aim to highlight the need to recycle, to travel in a sustainable manner and to conserve energy and water.

 

 

Our impressions of the our Eco-Trip

From Pippa Jolles and Emily Matson-Thomas, year 8

On our Eco-Committee trip, we went to Aberthaw Power Station and Cog Moors Wastewater Treatment Centre.


Aberthaw Power Station and the view across the Bristol Channel

Our first visit was to Aberthaw, where on arrival we were shocked at the scale of it, and we saw how massive these power stations need to be to even supply a part of a small country like Wales! It was so big that before the station was built, the site was actually an entire golf course.



Firstly we were taken to their education building for a presentation on what goes on inside the station, and from what we could understand there was an immense amount of precision, technology and science that goes into supplying us with electricity in the most efficient way possible. Our tour guides explained that Aberthaw is in many ways more eco-friendly than other power stations because they have now scaled down to three turbines that produce more power, making it more efficient. Also, as of 2008, they have installed flue gas desulphurization equipment, which decreases the amount of sulphur dioxide emissions by 90%, so it won’t contribute as much to climate change. Also two thirds of their coal is from Wales, they use biomass supplied locally, and they are currently trialling a new Carbon Capture system, the first in Europe, which has only ever been tested in lab conditions.

We then went on a tour around the station seeing the control room, that looked like the inside of a spaceship, where all the energy is produced (we didn’t hear much about that because we had to wear ear plugs for safety!) and outside where they use seawater as cooling water. They asked us to spot the spelling mistake in the “Danger risk of drowning” sign, and it turns out there was a danger of “drowing”, whatever that is! Despite the windy weather and “attractive” safety gear, we found it really interesting and our tour guides were amazing.

Afterwards we drove to Cog Moors. First our guide showed us what was in wastewater, with a very hands-on approach! Two of our Year 7s volunteered to demonstrate, and before realising what they had gotten themselves into, ended up pouring shampoo, shower gel, nappies, tissues, conditioner and even actual pee and poo into the water to make a lovely waste water sludge!

Then we were shown around the centre, seeing the solid waste being pushed out of machines in long lines, the brown sludge being removed from the top of the water and the water being filtered out. It made us realise how disgusting our water would be without places like Cog Moors, how quickly disease could spread, and also how bad it would smell! Again, our guide was great and it was a very interesting visit.





 


A big thank you to the people at Aberthaw and Cog Moors, and Mrs Ellis and Miss White for giving us the opportunity to go on this trip. We definitely learnt a lot!

Pippa and Emily

Committee Meeting Minutes - May

In this meeting, the committee took part in a workshop to write lyrics for an eco-song. The committee also reported on their recent visit to Aberthaw Power Station and Cog Moors Wastewater Treatment Plant. See the 'From the Bathroom to the Bay' article to read more about the visit.

The full minutes from the Eco Committee meeting, held on the 9th of May, are available in the 'Eco-Committee Updates' tab at the top of the page.

From the bathroom to the bay

Eco-Committee members from years 7-10 went on a visit to Aberthaw Power Station and Cog Moors Wastewater Treatment Plant. The visit was to develop the pupils' understanding of energy, waste and water issues to inform the Eco-Committee's Action Plan.

The day started with an explanation of the mechanics of the power station which incidentally is the same size as 20 Millennium Stadiums.

Pupils then went on a tour around the plant and learnt of recent changes to the power station to ensure it meets stringent environmental regulations. Even though Aberthaw Power Station will always predominantly be a coal fired station, it uses a growing amount of biofuels such as sawdust. It is also developing innovative ways to clean the power station's emissions, such as the world's first sea-water basin used to take the sulphur dioxide out of the flue gas before it is released into the atmosphere.

 



The visit to Cog Moors Wastewater Treatment Plant was a lot of fun. Pupils followed the journey water takes from the bathroom into the bay - from the second it is clean water used in the bathroom in the morning. Year 7 volunteers were given a big tank of clean water and into it they tipped products that people put down the toilets and sinks - products such as nappies, cotton buds, detergents and fat. Afterwards, the pupils went on a walking tour around the site and saw how those products are filtered out of the water in different stages so that it is clean enough to be pumped into the channel. It is hard to believe that only 15 years ago the plant didn't exist and waste water was being pumped directly into the sea without any filtering at all.

 



 

Committee Meeting Minutes - April

In this meeting, Andrew RT Davies, Welsh Assembly Member, joined the Eco-Committee to learn more about the work of Eco-schools at Cowbridge Comprehensive. The committee also got the chance to have any questions they had about the work the Assembly does for environment answered by Mr. Davies. See the 'Eco-Committee welcomes AM' article to read more, and to view a video clip of the meeting. Feedback was also given regarding the staff car-sharing survey, with many positive and encouraging results. The year 8 Eco-Committee representatives reported back after their meeting with the caretaker concerning the school's water fountains: 'Where's my Water?'.

The full minutes from the Eco Committee meeting, held on the 25th April, are available in the 'Eco-Committee Updates' tab at the top of the page.

Eco-Committee welcomes AM

Welsh Assembly Member, Andrew RT Davies, visited the school today to spend time learning about the work of the Eco-Committee.

He was welcomed to the Eco-Committee's monthly meeting and took part in the discussions. He also answered a number of insightful questions from the pupils about what the Welsh Assembly is doing about the environment.

He said that the pupils had shown a detailed knowledge of the subject and had demonstrated a commitment and a determination to make changes.

To watch a video of some of the issues discussed at the meeting click here.