The challenge

Dott (Designs of the times) asks Year-8 pupils in Cornwall two things:

What's the size of your school's ecological footprint? and How could design make it smaller?

This project fits in with the National Curriculum. Across Cornwall, thousands of Year-8 pupils will think creatively about how their schools actually work and redesign those elements with the biggest ecological and carbon footprints.

First they'll study all aspects of their school over a 24-hour period, to gauge the size of its footprints. So they'll look, for example, at journeys to and from school, energy use, school meals, water use and waste disposal.

Then, between an ECO calculator spreadsheet and an animated Flash version of it, students can process their data, then reproduce it graphically, giving, in effect, a school report (a report accessible via this site).
 
All this information amounts to a design brief and a twin-track next phase: What does a sustainable future entail? and How can designers think sustainably? Year-8 pupils already know plenty about sustainability and they're also pretty creative: this project's all about blending the two.