Creating green, sustainable energy

The key:

Ex. 3

1 T  2 F   3 F    4 T    5 F   6 T     7 T  

Audioscript:

Richard: Our next story on Green World is about a school in England. This school has had a great idea for creating green, sustainable energy. Here to tell us about it is Cathy.

Smith: Cathy, what is this idea?

Cathy:  Hi Richard. Well, in most schools, if you run in the corridors, you get into trouble. But at Simon Langton Grammar School if you run in the corridors, the teachers will probably be really happy.

Richard: Why is that?

Cathy:  Because if you run, you help to produce electricity for the school. And it’s all thanks to an old student from the school, Laurence Kemball-Cook.

Richard: That sounds amazing. How does it work?

Cathy:  Well, one of the corridors has a special fl oor. It has 12 metres of special squares or tiles. When you walk on them you produce electricity. Just one step produces about four watts of power. And you produce more energy if you walk fast. Laurence says the squares will produce 100 watts when the corridor is busy. And he also calculates that if the students walk on the squares for one year they’ll produce enough electricity to charge 853 mobile phones, or one mobile phone for two and a half years, and keep one light working for more than two months!

Richard: So if they produce extra electricity, the school will save money.

Cathy:  That’s right. And of course they don’t create any pollution because this is green energy. It’s interesting because the special corridor goes to the technology classrooms. So when students walk to class they can see a practical example of how clever and important technology can be.

Richard: It’s a brilliant idea, isn’t it? How did Laurence think of it?

Cathy:  He first had the idea when he was at Victoria Station in London. It was the busiest time of the day. He just thought – look at all this energy! How can we use it? The amazing thing is that he was still at university at this time.

Richard: Is his school the only place where he’s used this technology?

Cathy:  No, he started by putting a special floor in an underground station in London during the Olympic Games. They produced enough electricity to light the station at night! He also did something similar at the Paris marathon. Imagine how much energy you can get from all those people running!

Richard: It’s such a simple idea, turning energy from walking and running into electricity.

Cathy: Yes. If they do this in every school in the country, we’ll save a lot of money and help the environment, too. You know, another one of Laurence’s ideas was to use it on a dance floor at music festivals. When you dance on the special floor you can use the energy to charge your mobile phone!

Richard: Wow! Maybe if the teachers let them, students won’t run in the corridors – they’ll start dancing