Two secondary schools in Greenwich took part in an E. ON renewable energy workshop this week.

Year 8 and 9 students from St Thomas More Catholic Comprehensive School and Stationer's Crown Woods Academy built their own replica biomass-fired power stations.

More than 120 students were given a strict budget and deadline with tasks including designing a silo for storing the biomass fuel and building a hub and turbine blades to generate the power.

Ashleigh Walsh, Head of Science at St Thomas More Catholic Comprehensive School, said: “We appreciate being able to offer our pupils alternative ways to learn, and E.ON’s renewable energy workshop covered the topic of biomass and power stations in a really interactive way.

"Getting the pupils to design and build elements of the power station was a great way for them to learn and has encouraged our pupils to link the classroom elements of science, design and technology to what actually happens in the real world.“

The E/ ON educational workshops strive to teach children about where energy comes from and how it is used in everyday lives.

Billie-Jean Poole, senior community relations officer at E.ON, said: “E.ON has a long-standing relationship with the Greenwich community, and we currently supply heat and hot water through a local community heating scheme known as district heating to our customers at Greenwich Millennium Village. We’re also fitting smart meters for our customers living in the area.

“Building on this activity, and since it isn’t always possible to take a year group into one of our power stations, we developed our renewable energy workshop to take into schools instead. It’s been designed to support the national curriculum for science, with practical elements intended to enable young people to learn about energy in a hands-on and fun way.”