A new £4.7m science centre will be built at a Didcot school - and will showcase some innovative technology of its own.

The centre, at St Birinus School, will be the first Oxfordshire County Council building to harness the earth's energy to heat rooms.

Bore holes will be constructed beneath the block to extract energy from the ground. The system will be reversed in summer to cool the building.

The underground system will also reduce the school's carbon foot print and energy bills.

The new centre, which will house 13 laboratories, is part of a major redevelopment programme on the school's Mereland Road campus.

Work is due to start on the science block in the summer and be completed by autumn 2008.

The neighbouring Greenmere Primary School will be demolished when a new £4m primary school building is completed by Easter.

That will pave the way for the new science centre to be built next to St Birinus School.

A new entrance to St Birinus will also be created to improve safety, and a number of temporary classrooms will be removed.

St Birinus headteacher Chris Bryan said the new centre would bring science education at the school into the 21st century.

He added: "We are surrounded by world class and technological research centres in the area and this new building will provide us with an outstanding opportunity to promote science to all young people throughout the school, in the knowledge that many of them will embark on scientific careers in the future."

Planning permission for the science block was granted by Oxfordshire County Council.

Cabinet member for school improvement Michael Waine said: "This is a really exciting project.

"It's very fitting that state-of-the-art energy saving technology should be included in a new science building."