Earthshot Prize 2024
On 29 November, 9 Year 10 students who were chosen to represent the school at the Inaugural Sustainability Expo, traveled to the Hills Grammar School to showcase their innovative ideas as part of the Earthshot Prize 2024. Our students were alongside many other schools coming from places as far as Byron Bay, who expressed their passion and desire to improve the quality of our earth. Keynote speaker Timothy Johnson is an artist who is the founder of CollaborOceans, which promotes creatives collaborating for ocean conservation. Johnson’s devotion towards ocean conservation and sustainability was truly inspiring and his encouragement towards students developing sustainable ideas and initiatives planted the seed for those who aspire to save the Earth even with the smallest of steps. As the day continued, each school set up stalls presenting their ideas with a group from the McDonald College presenting ways to implement a Waste Free Wednesday, allowing students to scope out the innovative ideas that students have created.
Earthshot presentations were next on the agenda, where students who participated in the Earthshot prize were judged by a panel, asking questions and providing feedback on students’ projects. The College had two groups presenting their ideas, The Scoby Solution and The Bam Plan. The Scoby solution aims to replace single-use plastics specifically in school canteens by providing an eco-friendly, 100% biodegradable alternative, moving towards the initiative of building a waste-free world. The Bam Plan, also applies to the initiative of building a waste-free world, taking bamboo cutlery and lessening the waste of this eco-friendly alternative by transforming the leftover materials into bedroom furniture. It was astonishing to see so many students have such a profound concern for the future of our Earth and have developed incredible ideas that were backed by in-depth research and even prototypes of their proposed ideas.
To finish off this insightful day, students attended a workshop where the head of Sustainability at Lindisfarne Anglican Grammar School spoke to students about the sustainability practices that they have implemented, which was remarkable. Overall, the day was a truly valuable experience, inspiring students to continue working towards the goal of having a sustainable community, an issue that should be more prevalent in today’s society.
