Engaging with Students to Ensure Eco Friendly Welfare Units

It is important to make the younger generation aware of the issues surrounding the environment and the opportunities that are available to ensure that we do as little harm as possible.

As the construction industry is stereotyped as having a negative impact on the environment, we challenged a group of students from the South Dartmoor Academy to research and present back to us their findings on alternative solutions to how our welfare units could be more economically powered. We gave very minimal guidance on the project so that the work was all through their own choice – a few site plans along with a couple of tips were provided, this allowed them to lead their own work.

This project had the students using multiple skills, such as researching, data collection, team work, presenting etc, whilst gaining valuable knowledge about the environment.

We were extremely impressed with some of the ideas that were covered in the presentations and how well structured the groups were.

A popular format included: what method they had chosen, an explanation of how it works, the energy production and then outlining the costs and repayments.

The ability the students showed throughout their presentations was quite remarkable – we have also had some excellent feedback from the staff at the school.