College students take a shine to sustainable energy solutions
Ray Prowse from the ANU Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems was contacted by students from Braemar College, an independent, co-educational, ecumenical College for students in Years 5 to 12, in Victoria. The students were seeking assistance for their entry into the Macquarie Bank sponsored problem-solving contest. They chose "Global Climate Change" as their topic and wanted to find out more about the role that solar energy could play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
"I gave them plenty of useful information and one of the teachers, Sue Douglas, expressed the desire to bring a group of students up to Canberra to visit our laboratory at ANU," said Ray.
"We decided instead that it might be an idea for me to go the College and meet the students, and during my time there, conduct a walk through energy audit of the school pointing out ways in which they could reduce energy demand as well as ways to use solar energy," he said.
The problem-solving group took all the advice on board and used this to finalise their project for the contest. Much to their delight and thanks to their hard work, the students at Braemar College won the Macquarie Bank Problem-Solving Contest National Title.
"In appreciation of our help the students raised money through the sale of compact fluorescent light fittings and presented ANU with $500, which will be used as a bursary for an Honours or Masters student studying solar energy in the Department of Engineering," said Ray.
The relationship with Braemar College has generated a lot of local community interest in sustainable energy systems and Ray recently spoke at fundraising functions, particularly about ways that communities may access finance to undertake retrofit improvements to their homes, and thus reduce their contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.
Collaboration with community groups and with the ANU has been critical with the local community and the students from Braemar College are now off to Colorado in the USA to represent Australia in the international schools problem-solving contest.
"They have high hopes of doing well, and I wish them every success," said Ray.
