Slovenian and Italian students rolled up their sleeves to support energy savings and contribute right away to building a greener future. How? By developing ideas and projects to promote respect for the environment and the culture of sustainability thanks to the TESSI Crossborder AWARD, a competition targeting high schools that pay particular attention to environmental concerns.

The 37 participating projects (18 from Slovenia and 19 from Italy) were developed over the course of the 2012/2013 school year in three categories, "schools", "students", and "multimedia". The respective winners were the Jurij Vega Science High School in Idrija, Slovenia; Simone Rattenni of the Marinelli Science High School in  Udine, Italy; and the Galvani State Institute of Art in Cordenons (PN), Italy.

The Jurij Vega science high school in Idrija, the winner in the school category, submitted a project called "Save the World", which involved the institute's students, teachers, and administrative staff. The goal was to monitor the consumption of electricity, water, and gas and reduce it through small measures (e.g. turning off the bathroom lights during classroom hours, reducing consumption during vacations to zero, installing energy monitors, etc.). Not only did the school manage to cut water consumption by 18%, energy by 12% and fuel by 19%, it also succeeded in promoting a culture of sustainability among the 450 or so people involved. Second place in the school category went to the Vič High School in Ljubljana, while third place went to the Fratelli Navarra State Agrarian Institute in Ostellato, Ferrara province, Italy.

First place in the student category went to Simone Rattenni of the Marinelli Science High School in Udine with his project "The groceries we throw away". Simone focused on domestic energy consumption and waste production, and involved his family in the project. He designed a programme to monitor the use of perishable food products and proposed concrete alternatives to reduce the quantity of waste. Second and third place in the category went to Slovenian students. Eva Dežman, Otelija Loti Lamovšek, Meta Lukanc, Špela Lukanc, Žiga Jensterle, Anže Dežman, Eva Režonja, and Alen Čaušević of the BC Naklo Technical Institute came in second, while Leon Mohorič and Mitja Likar of the Jurij Vega Science High School in Idrija took third place.

The award for multimedia went to the Galvani State Institute of Art in Cordenons, Pordenone province, for an animated short titled "4 elements". This video uses painting to depict the Earth's evolution and the consequences of human behaviour. Second and third place also went to Italian students: respectively the Magrini High School in Gemona del Friuli, Udine province, and the Paolino d'Aquilea Senior High School in Cividale, also in Udine Province.

The prizes for the three top finishers in each category included digital microscopes, personal computers, thermometers, light meters, tablet video projectors, GoPro cameras, and digital video cameras.

The TESSI Crossborder Award is one of the activities of the TESSI - Teaching Sustainability across Slovenia and Italy project financed by the European Regional Development Fund and national funds as part of the Italy-Slovenia Programme for Trans-boundary Cooperation 2007-2013 and is the result of a partnership between AREA Science Park (coordinator), the Immaginario Scientifico Science Centre, the University of Ferrara, the Slovenski E-Forum and the University of Nova Gorica. In addition to the awards, the project promotes numerous other activities, including teacher training courses. These are free courses on topics related to energy savings. More information is available at: www.tessischool.eu/corsi