Pupils Urged To RUN Not Walk To Generate School's Electricity Supply

Pupils Urged To RUN Not Walk To Generate School's Electricity Supply

Pupils are being encouraged to RUN - not walk - when they tramp the corridors of their school - because the more energetic they are, the more energy they create for their classrooms.

It's all part of an initiative to create electricity to power the school's lights and electronics.

Environmental experts have lined a corridor with special kinetic tiles and every footstep on them creates sustainable energy.

During busy times at the school they are expected to generate a peak of about 100 watts of power. Over a year, the energy expected to be generated from the 12m of tiles is expected to be enough to fully charge 853 mobile phones; power one mobile for two and a half years; keep a light bulb illuminated for more than two months or power an electric car to drive seven miles.

"The students really enjoyed trying to give them a right bashing –running around and jumping up and down on them," Matthew Baxter, headmaster of the 1,200-pupil Simon Langton Boys' Grammar School in Canterbury, told The Independent.

The tiles were dreamt up by Laurence Kemball-Cook, a former pupil at the school, who is now chief executive officer of his own company, Pavegen Systems.

"Imagine if children running, playing and walking in all schools in the UK could help power the lights in their school corridors or the applications in their classrooms."

The tiles are on the route pupils take to their design and technology lessons and will hopefully concentrate their minds on issues such as promoting sustainable energy as they approach the classroom.

"What we're doing here is something quite different and quite creative and innovative," said Mr Baxter.

"We want to create the mathematicians, scientists and engineers of the future – not just teach the national curriculum and exam syllabuses. That's not the kind of approach we want.

"Our students spend about a third of their time going outside and beyond the curriculum, looking at the kind of research they might be able to do in universities and beyond."

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