Supporting the Carbon Detectives Team

The Carbon Detectives’ Kit is designed to be used by pupils led by a Carbon Detectives Team. Much of the help and support they need is on the website. Hopefully pupils will come to you and ask if they can explore and measure the school’s carbon footprint. If they don’t, you can always introduce the idea yourself.

However the process starts – whether through pupil initiative or through your suggestion, the Carbon Detectives Team will need your help and support in the following ways:

  • Registering the school on the website.
  • Getting the necessary permissions and support from the Head Teacher for data to be collected.
  • Helping to find the right people in the school and local authority responsible for keeping some of the information needed and approaching them for support. The Bursar, Secretary, Office Manager, Catering Manager and Grounds Manager are the people who will have information needed by the Carbon Detectives Team.
  • Deciding how the data will be collected. Some Assignments could be done as part of curriculum work in class time (such as drawing a plan of the school to work out the ground area, or planting trees). Other Assignments will need extra time and support.
  • Supervising some Assignments and making sure that the Carbon Detectives Team and other pupils helping them are safe.
  • Making sure that they have access to the internet and other resources such as a printer to print out the data collection forms.
  • Encouraging the whole school to join in the project, especially by providing information on food and travel.
  • Checking the data when it has all been collected and helping to lock it in place on the site.
  • Deciding how to share information with the rest of the school, perhaps through an assembly or special notice boards.
  • Using the mission control pages to plan action with the Carbon Detectives Team to reduce the carbon footprint of the school. It is important that the Carbon Detectives Team can initiate change and see some tangible and effective outcomes from their work
  • Encouraging the senior management of the school to set annual targets in the school management plan to reduce CO2.
  • Motivating pupils to continue with the data collection and to repeat the process after a period of time to see improvement.