Solar for Schools visit
On Thursday 19th June, ‘Solar for Schools’ visited Talbot to tell us more about the solar panels we have on our school roof. Solar for School’s mission is to empower pupils to create a net-zero carbon future, starting with our school rooftops.
In the morning, all of KS2 had an assembly to introduce solar panels and what they do. We discovered that this month Talbot have saved £1,440 on bills and stopped 1564kg of carbon dioxide emissions. This is equivalent to charging 114 electric cars. This is how amazing our solar panels are at saving energy. It was so sunny today that we were actually sending energy back to Northern Power Grid.
After the assembly, the School council representatives were gathered to take part in a workshop and find out even more information about our school solar panels. Wendy and Clare showed the school council a working replica of a solar panel to give us a better idea of how solar panels work. By tilting the solar panel towards the light, we could see the lights turn on and the fan whirring. School council discovered that solar panels are tilted so when there are harsher weather conditions, like snow, the snow can slide off and the solar panels can continue to work. During our next experiment, the children covered the solar panels with transparent, translucent and opaque paper. The opaque paper stopped the light and the fan working which means our solar panels do not work at night time. We need the sunlight to power them. This is why we generate more electricity in the summer than the winter.
The School Council then had the opportunity to take on the role of various job titles. These were people who, together, helped to build the Talbot solar panels. We had a project manager, a finance manager, an electrician, a designer and a meteorologist, to name a few. We discovered the different roles these jobs had to play in building our solar panels then got outside to put our roles to the test.
Our favourite part of the visit was getting outdoors and helping to fly the drone (we didn’t have our pilot certificates, that apparently you need, to fly this ourselves) to see the solar panels located on the roof of KS2. We were told that each solar panel was comparable to the height of an average primary school child.
We then had a go at ordering different electrical appliances from greatest to smallest, based on the amount of energy it takes for them to work. We discovered that electricity is measured in watts. You can see how many watts it takes for any electrical appliance to work by looking for the (w) on the appliance. Did you know a electric shower has one of the greatest energy usages, using around 8,000watts? We need to take shorter showers at home to save money! Also, an oven uses a lot of energy too. We listed ways we could help save energy; turning off lights, taps, shorter showers, switch of appliances at the plug, walk more and use energy saving lightbulbs. Wendy and Clare were extremely impressed with our pre-existing knowledge.
School Council were delighted with their new-found knowledge of solar panels; already discussing with their classmates and teachers what they have discovered. We look forward to educating the rest of school about them too.
