Mitsubishi Electric has been helping its staff's children to learn about renewable technology and the importance of recycling.
The children visited the company's Hatfield headquarters during their summer break as part of its innovative and award-winning education programme.

Developed as a teaching resource for primary schools, the Learning Curve aims to help children to understand the importance of adopting the '3 Rs' - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. The morning session is specifically designed to fit seamlessly into the curriculum and aims to teach the energy consumers of tomorrow all about renewable technologies.

'Over 500 pupils have already visited our facilities and the feedback from both students and teachers has been brilliant. We wanted our staff's children to also have a chance to understand what their parents are involved in so arranged this morning for anyone who wanted to attend,' said office manager, Jenny Maskrey.

The programme was developed under the stewardship of Maskrey and a dedicated team of staff who have designed experiments to interest and involve the children whilst basing the morning on the curriculum, so that the session becomes a benefit to the teachers as well.

Using a specially designed workbook complete with stickers and purpose-built experiments, the children discover how photovoltaic panels can use solar energy to reduce electricity consumption and also investigate how air source heat pumps can provide heating in the middle of winter, by extracting 'free' energy from the outdoor air.

They also recycle their drinking cups into bird feeders and visit the company's wormery, where kitchen waste is recycled.

Ms Maskrey said: 'As well as showing the children the importance of reducing energy use in our everyday lives, we want to challenge them to think about how society should cope with increased demands for energy use, whilst also seeking to combat climate change.'

Mitsubishi Electric is now looking to extend the programme to other parts of the country and is also looking to develop a programme aimed at secondary schools.

For more information on the programme visit www.thelearningcurve.me.uk or contact Jenny Maskrey at thelearningcurve@meuk.mee.com