31 January 2007

ACT Schools - environmentally sustainable, soon to be extinct

| emd
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In a story on environmentally sustainable schools, ABC reports that Amaroo has solar power, grey water recycling, sub-soil irrigation, and passive solar design. The Green Building Council has praised DET’s efforts.

Benefits of this kind of sustainable school include a healthy environment for students, and better teacher retention. More fresh air, more daylight, fewer bad emissions.

Never mind that one of the schools closed in 2006 was part of the sustainable schools pilot program – with an environment centre, recycling programs, chooks and vegie gardens, and a much higher than average rate of students who walked to school.

While we’re on my favourite topic, ABC reports that the Liberals and Greens are both calling for a delay in selling off closed schools until after the next elections (due in 2009). They say that this will give Canberrans a chance to have their say on the school closures issue before it’s too late to re-open schools that have already closed. As Deb Foskey points out, demographic changes over the next few years may mean that schools closed in 2006 & 2007 need to be re-opened in a few years. Sounds very fair and democratic to me – even if they sell off the land now, we’re unlikely to have anyone living on it (aged, low income, or yuppie apartment dwellers) by 2009 anyway.

[ED – Can anyone explain how it’s healthier, at the school site, to use energy produced on site rather than the stuff that comes down the powerline?]

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There’s not much point in reading the 2020 CON_sultation report: it doesn’t actually summarise the submissions. I really hope the government didn’t make any decisions from it. If you really must read it, you can download it for nothing from the DET website.

I have found my copy of the govt report into submissions to 2020 if anyone wants it.

Can anyone explain how it’s healthier, at the school site, to use energy produced on site rather than the stuff that comes down the powerline?

For PE classes, just put the kids on spin bikes attached to generators. Result = exercise + electricity + future cycling champions

i was working at one of these ‘smart building’ schools last year, it was about 15c, and the staff in the office were sitting on top of heaters as the computer controlled windows wouldn’t close, and couldn’t be closed manually! ah technology….

Really classy there Maelinar.

HHGTTG: the story of a race of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings who built a computer named Deep Thought to calculate the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. When the answer was revealed as 42, they were forced to build a more powerful computer to work out what the Ultimate Question actually was, but their plans never come to fruition.

The computer, often mistaken for a planet (because of its size and use of biological components), was the Earth, and was destroyed by Vogons five minutes before the conclusion of its 10-million-year program

Aww diddums.

it’s too lte for them to use ginninderra high school. it’s mostly gone.
i keep intending to go take pictures, but stuff keeps happening.

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