Staff and pupils from St Joseph’s Primary School in Killough met Victoria McCabe and Sacha Workman from First Flight Wind at the Information Day held at the Ardglass Golf Club[/caption]
FIRST Flight Wind, a consortium of three companies, B9 Energy, DONG Energy and RES, are hoping to build a marine windfarm off the County Down coast, and have recently completed a second round of Information Day events as part of the public consultation process.
The sessions were held along the County Down coast and Carlingford in County Louth where local schools enjoyed a guided tour of the offshore wind project exhibition.
Ten primary and secondary schools totalling around 250 pupils attended the Information Days where members of the Project Team were on hand to answer their questions, including ‘How big are the turbine blades?’ ‘Can you get into the turbine?’ ‘How safe are they?’ ‘What size will the offshore wind farm be?’
Victoria McCabe, First Flight Wind Community Liaison Team said: “We were delighted with the response from local schools who were keen to bring their pupils to an Information Day near them and learn more about this offshore wind farm project. They especially enjoyed being able to talk directly to the specialists who work on the technical, environmental and engineering aspects of the project”.
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Pupils from St Nicholas’ Primary School, Ardglass, along with Vice Principal Paul Gilchrist attended the Information Day at Ardglass Golf Club and met Victoria McCabe from First Flight Wind[/caption]
“After the tour we asked primary school children to use their imagination and think of words to describe an offshore wind farm. The words they came up with included ‘creative’ ‘big’ ‘clever’ ‘awesome’ ‘mysterious’ ‘exciting’ ‘strong’ ‘useful’ and it was a great insight for us to view the project from their perspective”.
“Many of the older secondary school students are already considering careers in offshore wind, so we were able to give them information on the range of further education courses available to them. They also understand why we need to embrace renewable energy in response to issues, such as our dependence on imported fossil fuels and climate change, which are covered in the school curriculum. We look forward to continuing our work with schools throughout Co. Down and Co. Louth.”
First Flight Wind will keep young people informed about the project and will be launching the second stage of the education programme next year. For further information for schools, including free resources, please visit:
www.firstflightwind.com/
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