VERBUND Climate School of Hohe Tauern National Park Goes Full Speed Ahead

In the past school year, some 900 students in the VERBUND Climate School of Hohe Tauern National Park have experienced, discovered and explored the meaning of climate, climate change and climate protection. With immediate effect, the climate school is hitting the road in electric cars.

In future, rangers will visit schools with a tank full of electricity
Leading by good example, the climate school in Carinthia and Tyrol will in future get about in electric cars delivered to the national park management by VERBUND und Raiffeisen Leasing in Vienna.

Moving ahead using electricity generated from hydropower, the national park rangers thus reach the schools and future climate conservationists without omitting harmful emissions. VERBUND CEO Wolfgang Anzengruber: “The shortage in oil reserves goes hand in hand with the growth in energy consumption. For example, the transport sector within the EU-27 alone requires 73 % of the petroleum used in Europe. Electric mobility is especially worthwhile and efficient in Austria since a large part of the electrical power is generated from renewable energy carriers. An electric vehicle that ‘tanks up’ exclusively using green power is CO2-free on the road. It is here that VERBUND is able to make an important contribution.”

An expanded tuition offer
In the past school year, the climate school was only open to schools from the national park communities of Carinthia, Salzburg and Tyrol. From school year 2011/12, all schools from the national park districts are invited to take advantage of the free offering of climate project tuition provided by VERBUND and Hohe Tauern National Park for grades 4 through to 7. Over the course of four days of tuition in each case, national park rangers will teach the classes on the subjects of climate change and climate protection. By means of exciting experiments, small research assignments and independent projects, students learn how they can personally make an active contribution to climate protection. “Climate change is also noticeable in Hohe Tauern National Park. The melting of the glaciers, the changes to the flora and the thawing of the permafrost are visible signs. For several years, scientific projects have been documenting these changes. The VERBUND Climate School presents this change to the students in a graphic way. The children are our climate conservationists of tomorrow and it is intended that they better understand and learn the global correlation of the climate, as well as how they can put a positive focus on climate protection on the local level. Our national park rangers’ journey to lessons in an electric vehicle acts as an important role model through which to direct the development on the automobile market of the future onto the right tracks,” says Peter Rupitsch, Board Chairman of the Hohe Tauern National Park.

Cooperation among climate conservationists
Two climate conservationists have partnered up in the VERBUND Climate School of Hohe Tauern National Park. VERBUND is Austria’s leading producer of electricity from hydropower. More than one fifth of the electricity production is generated through the power of water. Together with Hohe Tauern National Park, Austria’s oldest national park, it is intended that an awareness of the climate and climate protection be reinforced through the VERBUND Climate School.