Stewarton Academy was award a Bronze Award at last week’s inaugural East Ayrshire’s Clean, Green Award ceremony. There was special recognition for pupil leadership in this initiative. Thanks go to outgoing S6 pupils, Lois and Jane, for all their hard work. They have shared this short article to sum up the work that has been done over the session:

East Ayrshire Council’s Clean Green Award encourages young people to tackle the climate crisis through their school. It encourages action across the key themes of the climate change strategy: Energy, Transport, Waste and Natural Environment. We met with other schools virtually in October 2021 to discuss how to help our schools be more environmentally aware under the categories of these four themes. Over the past year we have worked towards a bronze award by encouraging energy saving within the school, liaising with the Ayrshire Roads Alliance, the Thrive Stewarton community group and Burns Nursery to name a few. The higher environmental science class also put together the first micro Teams lesson to inform pupils what they can do in their everyday lives to become more eco-friendly.

This week, we attended the Clean Green Award ceremony to accept Stewarton Academy’s Bronze Award with special recognition for pupil leadership. It was really inspiring to see all the hard work the other schools had been putting in over the past few months. We’ve really enjoyed taking on this responsibility as it is such an important issue and we hope our actions toward the award spread awareness of this global priority. This is just the beginning for Stewarton Academy and we can’t wait to hear about the ideas and action taken by next year’s team when aiming towards the silver award. This celebration of achievement has been such a nice way to end our time at Stewarton Academy, and we thank everyone who was involved and supported us throughout.

– Jane McDowell and Lois Anderson