An Introduction to Project Green
Project Green is open to secondary students S4 to S6 and college students aged 14-18. It aims to develop an interest in the environment and associated green jobs.
Members of the winning team will each receive an amazing Eco Media Player and be taken on a guided tour of the BBC’s new state-of-the-art HQ in Glasgow. Your guide on the tour will be none other than top weather girl ‘Heather the Weather’.
The team will select one of three scenarios covering:
- Carbon Footprint
- Energy
- Food
Each team will be asked to produce an e-update consisting on four web pages reporting on the subject and including a single page advertising jobs which complement the topic chosen. This will be carried out in a controlled online environment. By registering as a teacher any number of teams may be added. Each team has their own online workspace where they can upload images, add videos and enter text to create a visually appealing and factually enlightening series of web pages.
How to enter the competition
To enter a team, teachers must first register themselves. Registering as a teacher is easy:
Please use a personal school email address. Simply choose your Local Authority and school from the drop down menus, make up a password and that’s all there is to it. Once registered teachers may add teams. Simply enter a team name and choose which year the pupils are from. This competition is aimed at S4 to S6. Teams must comprise of a minimum of three to a maximum of six pupils. There is no limit to the number of teams from any school or any teacher.
After registering a team the teacher receives a PIN which is passed onto the pupils. Teachers have access to their own workspace which links off to their individual teams workspaces, allowing them to view their efforts. Using both the team name and the PIN, pupils can gain access to their project workspace. Pupils then edit the content of the e-update until they are content. Only teachers have the ability to submit the competition entry.
How to manage your team
Teams of pupils range from three to six and all pupils should read the three scenarios and collectively decide which one they will base their competition entry on. The scenarios are:
To decide on which scenario it may be useful to use a ‘thinking space’. To do this, ask the pupils to consider the impact of carbon emissions, expensive food and an electricity shortage. Ask them what would happen and jot down each suggestion on a single post-it. After the pupils have been given time to write down their thoughts – one per post it note, group the post it notes together into scenarios and stick onto a white board. This way the pupils feel involved in the decision making process. It will be visually apparent which scenario captures fires their imagination and it will be the one which they will happily research.
How to use the templates
Log in to the competition workspace. You will need to have registered to do this. Once on the workspace you will be able to choose up to 4 templates (one for each page in your e-update) from a range of layout designs.
Within each template there are several editable areas. Each individual editable area within a template may be used to display text, image or video but not a combination of all so choose your template carefully.
The individual templates will print out on a standard A4 sheet which allows you to take these away from the computer screen, see how the pages sit together in hard copy and discuss as a group offline.
How to get the best results
By reading through the Path is Green website you have found out the issues which affect climate change and the jobs involved in the industry. It is now important to share your discoveries with other people.
Use your best ideas for publicising the news in the scenario and create advertisements which explain what jobs are required to help prevent the situation arising. Include in the advert reasons why someone would want to get involved in that area of work.
You are designing the front page of a mini website so it will need to give a clear message aimed at the general public. As web pages are often skimmed and overlooked it is important that the front is striking in appearance and message.
A good front page:
- Shows clearly what the topic or message is.
- Has a headline which grabs attention.
- Has a short description of the topic or message.
- Uses keywords to help people pick out the main things you want to say.
- Has good pictures that help explain what you are trying to say.
- Good features pages
- Shares information and ideas with other people, so that you can persuade the reader to think more like you.
- Uses words, phrases, pictures or even video clips.
- Is designed to share the information in an attractive and meaningful way.
- Uses bullet points to break up the information.
A good job advertisement:
- Follows the classical AIDA selling format: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action
- Attracts attention (from appropriate job-seekers)
- Attracts relevant interest (by establishing relevance in the minds of the ideal candidates)
- Creates desire (to pursue what looks like a great opportunity)
- Provides a clear instruction for the next action or response
- Includes any qualifications and skills required.
You also want to keep your message clear and to the point, presenting a professional image. Some company branding may be present but not dominate the advert itself. Think about what words or pictures that will catch people’s eyes and use as few words as possible.
Here are some other general no-nos:
- Over-designed graphics (distracts and slows reading)
- Over-extravagant layouts and words (distracts and slows reading)
- Difficult to read quickly or at all for any reason
- Font (type-style) too small or too large
- Capital-letters (upper-case)
- Lots of words in italics - they are a lot more difficult to read quickly
- Strange-looking or fancy fonts
- Too clever or obscure headlines
- Too much technical detail