The Future Generation – Newton Farm Primary School
By Annabelle Coogans and Lisa Ashmore
Through the CEN Newsroom, we as young people have been gifted a voice, a chance to share our thoughts and feelings about the climate crisis with others. The future generation is vital for change and we are seeing this now. Through talking to the P7 class at Newton Farm Primary, we got to discover their passion for climate change and excitement for COP26 and we were pleasantly surprised to hear how extensive their knowledge was about this ever topical subject.
What We Learnt
Newton Farm Primary have done many projects to express their concern about the dangers of the long lasting effects of climate change such as their COP26 litter pick which was very successful and inspired many of the pupils at the primary to reduce their waste and use reusable tubs for snacks and lunches. These young pupils are full of innovative ideas such as wanting to swap school resources with biodegradable alternatives such as recycled paper and to use reusable water bottles at water fountains.
We asked the P7’s how they travel to school and we were pleased to hear a very high majority of them actually walk and others cycle instead of driving. We could see that these young pupils were extremely proud of their own achievements in contributing to improving their planet and were very empathetic to the cause.
Their Aspirations for Our Planet
The class was very enthusiastic to hear about the work we are doing at CEN and were eager to share their ideas with us, one girl had an amazing idea about getting governments to use solar panels in new buildings and told us how beneficial solar energy is to the planet. We were so happy to hear that the class had been keeping up with the CEN articles being posted and keeping informed with the current issues about our world.
The young people were very keen to hear about our journalistic experiences and it was clear they were interested in having a similar opportunity in the future as they have so many amazing ideas. We hope that these pupils get to take part in the CEN one day as they’re optimistic about the agreements at COP26 and hope to see continual improvement for the world they’re going to grow up in.
Not only are these P7’s very intelligent and caring about the environment, they’re also filled with creativity which we saw through them sharing their climate change themed poems and artwork.
We were so impressed and extremely proud of what the young pupils are doing, we hope to see them continue to be passionate about climate change and make an impact to the world. There is no doubt that these pupils are intelligent and capable of pushing towards a greener future.
Sources
Newton Farm Primary School
