PILOTS SNAPSHOTS IN ZAGREB
The TOGETHER project in Zagreb included the participation of 12 buildings, thereof 6 kindergartens and 6 primary schools. The main aim was to encourage the behaviour change in children (as they were the primary target group), as well as raise their awareness concerning the issues of energy and energy saving. Aside from the children target group, the project activities and the manner of their implementation were designed so as to include the adults (mostly the building staff and teachers, as well as the children’s parents) and encourage them to also change their attitude towards the question of energy and energy saving. In order to do so, the City of Zagreb organized and implemented the required training workshops, whereof two were held on site – one in a kindergarten and one in a primary school included in the project. Aside from that, the City of Zagreb also organized three advocacy meetings and eight stakeholder group meetings in order to present the project results. These were organised and conducted with the aid of the external expert, contracted to help the schools and kindergartens implement the project actions. All the objects participating in the project opted for a pilot action that included active participation of children and building staff: at the beginning of the project activities, the schools and kindergartens formed Energy tams, groups of students/children, teachers, principals and caretakers who took it upon themselves to monitor activities implementation in the building as well as to work with other individuals (children and adults alike) and raise their awareness, thereby permanently changing the behaviour of the building users. Some of the activities organized by buildings themselves included as follows: production of films, inclusion of additional topics – such as connection between energy saving and environment protection – into their project activities, organizing eco patroles, monitoring energy consumption, creating promotional posters, labels, graphs (= awareness raising campaigns), “Big kids teach the small kids” lectures, including the activities in sports events (“Get moving to save energy”) etc. The activities also included daily monitoring of energy, water and heating savings achieved, by way of monitoring the dashboards and using the measurement devices – luxmeter, energy consumption meter and thermometer. The pilot actions also included use of the educational game developed for the purposes of the project, Planet defenders, which was received quite well, as it allowed for the topic to be presented to the children in a fun and interactive way. Smart meter system is used in two ways:
1. on object monitoring the results of implemented measures and activities from past week. So, users can now better understand what activities give best results. If users manage to include everyone in the activity of turning off the light after using the classroom or switching all computers off (total shut down not stand by), the results of the energy saving will be displayed on the monitor. Using the measurement devices, they can get an accurate reading of how much energy every electric device is consuming.
2. the system shows the state of the building during the night, when nearly zero consumption is expected, especially as concerns water.
In one pilot building, we prevented over leakage, after having noticed high water consumption at night. There occurred pipe rupture behind the meter. We got positive opinions from the users (mostly kids) that they are checking the dashboards every morning to see if the troll is crying or is happy.
Clicking the following LINK you can watch an amateur video raising awareness about energy in Zagreb's Kindergarten Zapruđe. If you want to learn more about the activities in the Kindergarten Zapruđe, please follow this other LINK