Students at Cardinal Griffin Catholic High School are now all set for the Shell Eco-Marathon thanks to a cash injection from Staffordshire County Council.

Pupils are designing, building and testing energy efficient vehicles to run in the international event to be held in July.

The school’s efforts have been given a boost thanks to a £500 contribution from Staffordshire County Council.

Cardinal Griffin Catholic High School, in Cannock, will enter two cars, one each from the boys and girls teams, into the event. Their aim is to get their cars to run the furthest on the least amount of fuel.

The competition paves the way for the engineers of the future to start thinking about sustainability and climate change at this early stage of their careers. The school has an outstanding track record in the event winning the ‘Spirit of the Event’ category two years ago.

Duncan Mould, the teacher leading the project at Cardinal Griffin High School, said the County Council’s investment would make a big difference to the project.

“We are really pleased to be working with the Climate Change team on the Eco-Marathon project this year. Their investment will enable us to use better materials on the cars, giving us a greater chance of winning.”

“This project is really popular with our pupils and has massive educational value. We are training our future designers and engineers how to make vehicles run efficiently, which is going to be essential in a future faced with less fossil fuels and higher global temperatures.”

Sarah Fielding, Climate Change Officer at Staffordshire County Council, said the project laid good groundwork for the future.

“Projects like this not only make students aware of energy efficiency in vehicles, but also of the wider implications of energy use. As an organisation, schools are one of our biggest users of energy, so by helping pupils to become aware of sustainable energy use we can cut carbon pollution and save tax payers money too.”

“Car transport is one of the biggest polluters globally. The development of vehicles that are efficient and use renewable energy technologies will give us all a cheaper, cleaner future. It will be our young people of today who take on the challenge of developing viable new generation vehicles, and we are very happy to support them.”