The Young Environmentalist of the Year 2021
With the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in motion we felt it was a good time to do our bit to help raise awareness of Environmental Issues.
Therefore, we teamed up with The Rotary Club in Stratford Upon Avon to support The Rotary Young Environmentalist Competition.
The Rotary Young Environmentalist Competition is a competition organised and promoted by Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland (Rotary GB&I). The competition was held at local level, with the winning entries progressing through to a Regional round and ultimately to the National Final.
Aims and Objectives
The competition aims to encourage young people to:
· interact with the environment
· address serious environmental issues
· develop and explore solutions to the issues
· explore, investigate, research and undertake an environmental sustainability project
The competition was open to all schools and college communities and those who are home educated, along with any other young peoples’ community organisations, for example, community RotaKids, community Interact, Scout Groups, Girl Guides, Church Groups etc. There are three age groups:
- Junior 7 to 10 years old
- Intermediate 11 to 13 years old
- Senior 14 to 18 years old
Stratford Rotary Club were delighted at the standard of entries received. Several entries progressed through the Regional Finals to the National Final. Oliver Foster was judged to be the National Intermediate age group Winner. An insight into the entries and ideas received is given below.
- Toby Ledgard, Junior Individual National Finalist (Thomas Jolyffe School)
Can we make a solution to our plastic pollution?
Problem (The Facts):
- Plastic bottles take 450 years to biodegrade!
- 13 BILLION bottles are bought in the UK a year!
- There are 5 big garbage patches in the oceans. The most famous one is the North Pacific and its 3 times the size of France!
- Most plastic that we drop ends up in the oceans.
- Scientists think that one day there will be more plastic than animals in the sea!
Solution: The Turbo Plastic Sub
Key Message: Fantastic Plastic: NOT!!!
2. Jessica Baker, Junior Individual Highly Commended (Thomas Jolyffe School)
Key messages:
Save our planet/ help protect sea creatures.
Reduce your use of plastic.
The Dolphin cut out below summarises Jessica’s wonderful messages.
3. Beatrice Clarke, Junior Individual Highly Commended (Thomas Jolyffe School)
4. Elizabeth Heatherington-Loomes, Junior Individual Highly Commended (Thomas Jolyffe School)
5. Benji Hiscoe, Junior Individual Highly Commended (Thomas Jolyffe School)
My idea is to create a robot vacuum that would clean up land pollution!
6. David Ball, Junior Individual Highly Commended (Thomas Jolyffe School)
Air pollution is out of Control!
7. Jack Chandler, Junior Individual (Thomas Jolyffe)
Animals are dying! Don’t litter.
8. Sahana Krishanakumar, Junior Individual Highly Commended (Thomas Jolyffe School)
Biodiversity, Water, Deforestation and Pollution are the 4 areas we need to address.
Key Messages:
Water pollution is a massive problem for us and our environment. Not only is polluted water a substantial monetary strain but is also harming both mankind and marine life.
We need to have plants and trees to survive. They supply oxygen, food, water and also medicine for all people, across the globe. However, if deforestation persists at the pace it’s occurring, we won’t have a lot of the beneficial forestry remaining.
All of the 7 key forms of pollution: air, water, soil, noise, radioactive, light and even thermal – are impacting our environment.
Read Sahana’s Poem:
9. Beatrice Lloyd and Jack Reynolds, Junior Group National Finalists (Thomas Jolyffe School)
Plastic Waste: Video
10. Jessica Thorniley and Mary Heenan, Junior Group Highly Commended (Thomas Jolyffe School)
11. Oliver Foster, Intermediate National Winner’ (King Edwards School)
‘Do you really want to chop that tree down’
Including a Computer Programme for calculating carbon dioxide storage in trees set against household greenhouse emission
12. Joseph Whetton, Intermediate Highly Commended, (King Edwards School)
Climate change.
Key Messages
- Why does it matter if the earth gets hot? The ice-caps are melting killing millions of animals and their habitats. We are the villains destroying the earth with fossil fuels and we are running out of time!
- Simple things can help.
- If everyone creates a whisper we can create a harmony.
- LINK TO VIDEO
13. Amelia Parkin, Senior age group, National Finalist (Stratford Girls Grammar School)
Project Title: Addressing the environmental impact of our food system
Key Message:
“We ship food around the globe covered in plastic! The key is to reform the way we eat”.
14. Anna Hanlon, Senior age group, Highly commended (King Edwards School)
The impact of Urbanisation Carbon Emissions.
Key Take Aways:
- No dig gardening.
- Perennial plants not annual plants.
- Choosing trees with large leaves, which are native to the area.
- Allow part of your garden to overgrow.
- Don’t use artificial fertilisers.
- Dig a pond. A pond can be a great carbon store. It is suggested that the sediment at the bottom of ponds has the potential to store more carbon per year, than equivalent areas of grassland and woodland.
Key Quote
“There are approximately 27 million gardens in the UK, if every garden planted one tree that would be 27 million more trees which wouldn’t affect any agricultural sites. This would absorb up to four tonnes of carbon dioxide over twenty years.”
It is delightful to read these entries and see such young minds coming up with such fantastic solutions to the Global issues we face. We offer a huge congratulations to all those who entered the competition.
Finally, we offer a huge congratulations to Oliver Foster who received the Intermediate Age Group National Winner Trophy From Stratford Rotary’s President, Cliff Armstrong.
“I really enjoyed taking part in the Young Environmentalist competition as it allowed me to realise how much carbon is stored in trees and how important they are in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It also gave me a great opportunity to develop my computing and presentation skills and I hope my website can be developed further so people can decide if they really want to chop a tree down.” Oliver Foster
For more information:
COP26: https://www.comptonverney.org.uk/about-us/environment-sustainability/
Compton Verney: https://www.comptonverney.org.uk/