ECO-UNESCO Young Environmentalist Award Winners

Throughout the year Down High pupils have been passionately campaigning to protect pollinators and highlight the lack of governance to secure habitats for survival. The ‘Be Fair to Bees’ project has gained a lot of interest and was one of a 102 projects selected to be exhibited at the ECO-UNESCO Young Environmentalist Awards final, which took place at the Dublin Conference Centre on Thursday 23rd May. ECO-UNESCO is Ireland’s environmental education and youth organisation that encourages young people to voice their concerns about the natural environment through projects that demonstrate how they have taken action to improve their local environments. The Down High team were thrilled to be awarded the Senior Biodiversity Award.

In order to secure their place at this prodigious event each of the finalists had to attend a regional Eco-Den. This was a Dragon’s Den style semi-final that had pupils pitch their projects to a panel of expert judges. All of the pupils involved in the project were really excited to attend the event and were inspired and amazed by the huge range of incredible projects on display. The team also had the opportunity to take part in workshops and listen to guest speakers.

Congratulations to Annie Magowan, Jack Campbell, Hope McCarthy, Charlie Griffith, Adam Fermor and Rachel Hunter for the contribution that they made to make this project such a success. Unfortunately, Rachel, Charlie and Adam were unable to attend the event due to A-Level exams.

The team would also like to extend their thanks to the local and wider community who have all supported the project. There is still time to register your support for this worthy cause on the UK Parliament website as the survey remains active until the start of July. So please register your interest at UK Parliament Petitions, Be Fair to Bees.
Please see further information about the award winning projects through this YouTube link.
https://youtu.be/nHrNs8KFOVs