Win a set of solar panels for your school
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if your school was powered by clean energy from the sun and
saving money at the same time?
Solar panels could save your school thousands of pounds every year. And they’re a great
way to teach new generations of children about clean energy.
Now is your chance to win a set of panels for your school, including installation, for free.
Friends of the Earth is offering primary schools across England, Wales and Northern Ireland
the chance to enter an exciting competition.
We want you to unleash your school’s creativity and tell us why you’d love your school to
run on sun.
Your competition pack
This pack contains everything you need to enter, and some resources to help you make a
great entry.
If you have any questions about the competition or Friends of the Earth’s Run on Sun
campaign, please write to runonsun@foe.co.uk or call 020 7566 1638.
Need some inspiration? Have a look at this video of a London school working on their
entry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X392fumU5ZM
Contents of pack:
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About the competition and how to organise your school’s entry
How to talk about solar with your children and glossary of terms
Lesson plan – how to plan a great entry
Planning/ sketch template
Story board template for films and choreography
Spider-diagram planning sheet
Useful links
Terms and Conditions
Win solar panels for your school. Visit www.foe.co.uk/runonsun/win
1) About the competition
Entries will be accepted between 9th September and 15th December 2014.
The winning school will be announced in February 2015.
Enter the competition at https://www.foe.co.uk/runonsun/win
We’re interested to see entries which demonstrate creativity and enthusiasm. We’re really
happy to accept photography, short films, artwork or anything that gets your children
inspired. For example:
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Reading poetry
Collage
Craft projects
Dance and choreography
Song
Or whatever gets you and your children excited.
Note: please keep any video entries to a maximum length of one minute. Please upload
these to YouTube, and include a url in your submission. We may also ask you to supply any
video entries as a digital file at a later date eg mp4, mov, avi.
Supporting statement
We also ask you to submit 200 words to support your entry. This is where you can tell us in
your own words why you want to have solar for your school and why your school should win.
You could include:
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How solar could inspire your school to be greener
How the cost savings from having solar will benefit your school and how you’ll
use the money
How solar panels would benefit the local community
The statement could be written by a child or adult within the school community.
How to organise your school’s entry
It’s one entry per school, but it’s completely up to you how you organise that. Different
ways of working on it could be:
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One class or year group working on the entry
An eco-club or committee working on it
All the children in the school being involved, for example, by:
 Contributing to a collage or larger piece of artwork
 Choreographing the whole school (such as everyone in the school wearing
yellow and standing in the playground to make a giant sun!)
 Making a video featuring every class in turn saying or doing something.
Win solar panels for your school. Visit www.foe.co.uk/runonsun/win
2)
How to talk about solar with your children
We want your children to get excited about solar, but it can be a tricky subject to explain,
especially to young children. Here’s some of the concepts and key terms explained.
What is solar power?
Solar power is energy made from the sun’s rays. Special solar panels turn the sun’s light into
electricity.
Where does electricity come from?
Electricity powers everything from our computers and mobile phones to kettles and toasters.
It’s extremely useful. Electricity has to be made, or ‘generated’. This can be done by burning
fossil fuels, such as coal, oil or gas in power stations, which causes lots of pollution. It can
also be generated by clean, renewable energy, such as solar (energy from the sun) or wind
power.
How does solar power help the environment?
No pollution is created with solar energy. Using solar energy instead of fossil fuels means
that we create less pollution and reduce the emissions which cause climate change.
How will solar power help our school?
Solar panels save money - they could save your school thousands of pounds a year!
You can actually earn money by generating energy with solar. Usually you have to pay an
energy company for the electricity you use. With solar, you make the electricity yourself so
you don’t have to pay for it. What’s more, you can earn money for every bit of electricity you
make. You can even sell any electricity that you don’t use, which means more money for
your school.
Glossary of terms
Note: you might not need to use all of these terms, depending on the level of discussion you
have, the questions you get asked and the age of your children. You could also ask the
children to find out what they mean and create a quiz around them.
Solar power – electricity created from the energy of the sun’s rays.
Solar panels – solar panels fit on the roofs of buildings to capture the sun’s energy using
special photovoltaic cells.
Photovoltaics (PV) – solar power is often referred to as solar PV. Photovoltaics is a way of
generating energy by converting sunlight into electricity.
Renewable energy – energy from something that can’t be used up, such as wind or solar
power. Fossil fuels will eventually run out, but renewable energy sources won’t. Renewable
energy doesn’t create any pollution so is much better for the environment than fossil fuels.
The environment – everything in the world around us, including the air, water, plants and
animals. People talk about protecting the environment, which means keeping it clean and
safe for everybody.
Win solar panels for your school. Visit www.foe.co.uk/runonsun/win
Climate change – a change in weather patterns over a long period of time. Scientists
believe that using energy sources which are not renewable (such as coal, oil and gas) is
causing a change in the climate all over the world which could be extremely damaging to the
environment. This is already causing problems all over the world such as flooding,
devastating storms and droughts. The more fossil fuels that are burnt to make electricity, the
worse it will get.
Fossil fuels – fuels that are burnt to make energy, such as coal, oil and gas. These create
pollution – or ‘emissions’ – that cause climate change.
Friends of the Earth – a charity which wants to protect the environment and works for a
more healthy and fair world. At the moment Friends of the Earth is trying to help schools to
get solar panels, through a project called Run on Sun.
3) Lesson plan – planning your competition activity (KS2)
This lesson plan assumes that one class or year group works on an entry. But it can be
adapted for an eco-club or even a whole school assembly. It’s completely flexible how you
work on your entry so bear in mind that this is just a suggestion to help get the creative
juices flowing. You can plan this in any way you want.
Learning objectives: I can plan an activity; I can contribute ideas in a group
Lesson outcomes: to have planned an entry to Friends of the Earth’s competition to win
solar panels for the school.
Key vocabulary: solar power, solar panels, renewable energy, competition, plan, planning,
creative.
Lesson time – 30-45 mins
Introduction
Introduce the competition and solar power. We have a chance to win something amazing for
our school. We’re going to enter a competition to win some solar panels for the school.
Questions:
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Has anyone heard of solar power?
Does anyone know how electricity is made?
How could solar power help the environment?
Explain that solar can also help the school to save money. If we win the competition, we
could save thousands of pounds a year which we can spend on other things.
Introduce the competition:
Explain that we need to come up with an amazing idea. We could do art, drama, music,
video – whatever we want that we can do really well, to show why we love solar power and
want it for our school.
Ask the children to talk in pairs or school groups about the kinds of things they want to do.
Win solar panels for your school. Visit www.foe.co.uk/runonsun/win
Use the spider diagram template (or one of your own) to record and discuss some ideas.
What would this look like? Would it be easy or difficult to do? Note: alternatively you could
ask tables to do their own spider diagrams.
Ask children to put a tick or coloured dot next to 3 ideas on the spider diagram that they
really like. Look at the ideas which have the most ticks and discuss the most popular ones.
Are they practical – do we have everything we need to do or make this? Are the children
really excited about any in particular?
Choose, either by vote or consensus, the most popular (and achievable) idea to work on.
Activity (optional):
Once you’ve chosen your most popular idea, you could ask children to work on sketches,
make notes, or draw story boards (depending on whether the idea will consist of artwork,
video etc).
Look at some of the sketches and ideas, discuss them and talk about some of the best
aspects from a range. Look for ideas you could incorporate in the entry.
Remind children that the entry is a whole class/ year group effort (depending on how you’ve
decided to approach it). If you’d rather sketch ideas as a class rather than in groups or
individually, that’s fine too.
In the next session you can start working on your entry!
Win solar panels for your school. Visit www.foe.co.uk/runonsun/win
Win solar panels for your school. Visit www.foe.co.uk/runonsun/win
What our idea could look like . . .
Win solar panels for your school. Visit www.foe.co.uk/runonsun/win
Story board template
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Win solar panels for your school. Visit www.foe.co.uk/runonsun/win
7) Useful links
Competition website: www.foe.co.uk/runonsun/win
Video of a London school making their competition entry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X392fumU5ZM
Run on Sun website: www.foe.co.uk/runonsun
Solar Aid teaching resources to teach children about renewables: http://old.solaraid.org/sunnyschools/blog/resources.html
Contact details at Friends of the Earth: runonsun@foe.co.uk 020 7566 1638
Famous artwork inspired by the sun:
Paul Klee, Castle in the Night:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Paul+Klee,+Castle+in+the+Night&es_sm=93&tbm=isch
&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=J14VNnjNuyS7AbMi4CIBA&ved=0CCIQsAQ&biw=1227&bih=750#imgdii=_
Vincent Van Gogh, The Starry Night: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Starry_Night
Olafur Eliasson, Weather Project: http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/exhibition/unileverseries-olafur-eliasson-weather-project/olafur-eliasson-weather-project
Salvador Dali, Meditative Rose: http://www.theartistsalvadordali.com/rose-meditative.htm
Help from Friends of the Earth’s local groups:
Friends of the Earth has a network of around 200 local groups. A number of them are
working with us on our solar schools campaign – Run on Sun – and could support you in
your solar journey, either by coming in to give a talk or assembly, or helping you work with
the Local Education Authority or just chatting through your options and helping you plan the
next steps.
If you’d like to get in touch with your nearest local group, you can find their contact details
here:
http://www.foe.co.uk/get_involved/find_group.html
Win solar panels for your school. Visit www.foe.co.uk/runonsun/win
8) Competition terms and conditions
Please read these competition rules carefully. If you enter our Run on Sun competition,
we will assume that you have read these rules and that you agree to them.
General terms
1. The promoter is Friends of the Earth Limited. Reg. No.1012357. Friends of the Earth Trust
Limited. Reg. No.1533942. Charity No.281681 whose registered office is at The Printworks, 1st
Floor, 139 Clapham Road, London SW9 0HP.
2. Employees of Friends of the Earth or their family members or anyone else connected in any
way with the competition or helping to set up the competition shall not be permitted to enter the
competition.
3. By entering this competition, an entrant is indicating his/her agreement to be bound by these
terms and conditions.
4. The competition and these terms and conditions will be governed by English law and any
disputes will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England.
5. The promoter reserves the right to cancel or amend the competition and these terms and
conditions without notice in the event of a catastrophe, war, civil or military disturbance, act of
God or any actual or anticipated breach of any applicable law or regulation or any other event
outside of the promoter’s control. Any changes to the competition will be notified to entrants as
soon as possible by the promoter.
6. The promoter’s decision in respect of all matters to do with the competition will be final and no
correspondence will be entered into.
Entering the competition
7. There is no entry fee and no purchase necessary to enter this competition.
8. Route to entry for the competition and details of how to enter are via
https://www.foe.co.uk/go/solarcompetition. Only one entry per school is allowed. The competition
is open to primary schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland only.
9. Closing date for entry will be December 15th 2014. After this date no further entries to the
competition will be permitted. The promoter reserves the right to amend the competition end date
at any time.
10. Sending an email is no proof that we have received your entry. No responsibility can be
accepted for entries not received for whatever reason.
11. The promoter is not responsible for inaccurate prize details supplied to any entrant by any
third party connected with this competition.
12. The prize includes solar array, inverter, display up to the value of £15, 000. The school
agrees that the array must be installed within 3 months of winning. If your school subsequently
proves unsuitable for any reason, the prize will be offered to runner up. No cash equivalent to
prize will be offered. The prize is not transferrable.
Chosing the winner
13. A shortlist of potential winners will be chosen by a panel of judges appointed by the Promoter
Win solar panels for your school. Visit www.foe.co.uk/runonsun/win
14. The final winner will be chosen as a result of a popular vote conducted via the Promoter’s
website, social media sites as well as emails as measured and recorded by the Promoter’s
software and verified by Promoter.
15. The winner will be notified by email or post within 28 days of the closing date. If the winner
cannot be contacted or does not claim the prize within 14 days of notification, we reserve the
right to withdraw the prize from the winner and pick a replacement winner.
16. The promoter will notify the winner when and where the prize can be collected.
17. Competition consists of three stages. An initial public vote followed by a shortlisting through
Friends of the Earth appointed judges. A final public vote will determine the final winner.
Acceptance onto shortlist is contingent on receiving an acceptable quote for installation from an
approved installer, and written permission from building owner. This must be provided within 3
weeks of notification of possible inclusion on the short list. Friends of the Earth will provide as
much as assistance as it can to shortlisted schools to enable acceptance.
Competition submissions usage and permissions
18. The school retains copyright for all submissions to the competition (artwork, photo, film,
story).
19. In consideration of entering this competition the school grants Friends of the Earth
permission to use the submission for the promotion of the competition, Friends of the Earth’s Run
on Sun campaign as well as Friends of the Earth’s work more generally, including but not
restricted to online, social media, print, public displays, third party and media/press use.
20. The school is responsible for securing permission for the above uses (17.2) from anyone
featured (photographed, filmed or quoted) in any submission.
21. We would like to follow up with the winning school and create a case study using film and
photography to capture the solar installation. 18. This promotion is in no way sponsored,
endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook, Twitter or any other Social Network.
You are providing your information to Friends of the Earth and not to any other party.
22. The information provided will be used in conjunction with the following Privacy Policy found at
http://www.foe.co.uk/privacy_policy