Schools Workshops
Our Workshops
Are you looking for an interesting activity to include as part of your Green Schools programme, Green Flag – Action Day or for Science Week, Bike Week or Active Week? Our workshops are designed with these themes in mind and are suitable for both Primary & Secondary Schools. We will come to your school, set up the workshop (usually in a hall) and deliver it to your class groups over the course of the school day. Typically, each class group session lasts approximately 30 mins and can accommodate up to 30 students per group.
Age Groups
Our primary schools’ workshops are suitable for all streams from junior infants to 6th class, so even the youngest children still get to participate. We would recommend offering Pedal Powered Spin Art as the activity for younger children (from junior infants to 2nd class) and our VÉLOCITY Energy Awareness Challenge for children from 3rd class to 6th class. For Secondary School Students, we would recommend our VÉLOCITY Energy Awareness Challenge.
Workshop Content
For younger children (doing Spin Art), we keep it very simple. We keep the Science at a low level but explain that we will be making electricity using the generators built into our Energy Bikes and we use this electricity to spin our art drums. We touch lightly on green subjects like renewable energy (wind turbines), energy conservation (turning off appliances when not in use) & being kinder to the environment before the children each have an opportunity to design their own spin art painting by squirting paint into their spinning drum.
VÉLOCITY Challenge
3rd class to 6th class children will be participating in our VÉLOCITY Energy Awareness Challenge. The themes of Science, Global Citizenship, Power Generation, Renewable Energy and Climate Change are explored in more detail. There will be ample opportunity for questions, answers and discussion before each child gets their turn on our Energy Bikes to see just how much power they can generate! We relate their individual power output back to the power rating of domestic appliances so that they get a real-life sense of their effort. For example, a child generating 300 Watts of power will discover that their effort would power a blender, but it takes 100 adult cyclists pedaling continuously to power an electric shower!
Secondary School
For Secondary School students we explore all of these themes in more detail with plenty of opportunity for discussion. We show them the components required for and assembly of an off-grid energy generation system. Following this, each student will have their opportunity to participate in the VÉLOCITY Energy Awareness Challenge to see exactly how much power they can generate using two legs while generating zero carbon!
