CORNISH schools are vying for a £20,000 prize in a green design contest to make their premises more eco friendly.

The schools involved in the Design Council's Eco Design Challenge are also in line to receive help from top names in the industry to turn their students' ideas into reality.

The prize fund has been provided by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) as part of its programme to help young people acquire skills for an innovation-driven economy.

Thirty-four Cornish secondary schools started the challenge and 12 are now through to the design stage. They are Brannel School, Budehaven School, Falmouth School, Hayle School, Penair School, Penrice School, Penryn College, Sir James Smith's School, Camelford, St Ives School, Wadebridge School, Bodmin College and Camborne Community College.

Designers have been paired with the schools to mentor students into the final.

More than 20 design professionals, including the product designer Sebastian Conran and Joe Ferry, head of design for Virgin Atlantic, are scrutinising students' ideas for making their school more environmentally friendly.

The challenge is part of Designs of the Time (Dott) Cornwall – a Design Council initiative which brings together designers and local communities to collaborate on exploring and co-designing ways to tackle local issues. Dott Cornwall is run in partnership with Cornwall Council, University College Falmouth and the Technology Strategy Board.

Dott's Andrea Siodmok said: "The enthusiasm for this challenge among Cornwall's schools has been tremendous and the £20,000 prize fund from NESTA will really add to the fun and the possibilities for developing ideas that can make a real difference.

"We feel really privileged that so many top people in the design industry are willing to give up their time to mentor the young designers of the future."

Inspired

Since the new year, students and their project leaders have been using tools provided by the eco-team to calculate the carbon footprints of their schools. That information has inspired pupils' designs for change and raised awareness of what their schools need to do.

Students could be looking at ways of tackling the amount of water or energy they use, or the amount of their waste which goes to landfill – anything which reduces their school's impact on the environment.

The £20,000 will be awarded after a Dragon's Den-style final, with environmental campaigner Dick Strawbridge among the judges, at University College Falmouth's Tremough Campus on July 9.

See www.dottcornwall.com or www.ecodesignchallenge.co.uk