Fishermoss School wins Eco-Committee Award
A top prize in the annual Eco-Schools Scotland Awards organised by environmental charity Keep Scotland Beautiful has been won by Fishermoss School, Portlethen.
Nominees from more than 30 schools which proudly fly the international Eco-Schools Green Flag, across 17 local authority areas were received but Fishermoss School scooped the Eco-Committee of the Year 2024 Award.
The judges were impressed by the whole school 300 strong pupil-led approach to Learning for Sustainability.
The Eco-Committee, known as Global Warriors, pride themselves in knowing and understanding our world and having the right values, knowledge and skills to make the world a better place. They carry their meetings out online so all pupils can attend on the most effective ways to bring about change and improvements to their school, our environment, our community and beyond.
All classes, Primary 1 to Primary 7, were involved in undertaking formal Environmental Reviews on ten Eco-Schools topics and agreed to focus action on Climate Action, School Grounds and Biodiversity.
Classes then created Action Plans, identifying aims, actions, who was going to do what and when and how they were going to measure the impact.
Three Eco-School Scotland Awards have been allocated in 2024 - recognising those individuals and committees that have truly gone above and beyond in their Eco-Schools work, inspiring those around them and delivering innovative environmental action.
The other winners include:
- Climate Action Project of the Year 2024: Georgetown Primary School, Dumfries and Galloway.
- Eco-Coordinator of the Year 2024: Jennifer Sharkey, Principal Teacher of development at Our Lady and St Patrick's High School, West Dunbartonshire.
All winners will receive a trophy made from recycled marine plastic and the two winning schools have been invited to speak at an online training session, which will air on 22 May.
Andrea Gabriel, Education and Learning Coordinator at Keep Scotland Beautiful, said: “We love working with, and inspiring the thousands of children, young people and educators in schools across Scotland who are working tirelessly to progress climate change and environmental education action.
“Our awards celebrate the very best of the amazing work being done by so many in their schools and communities, through the Eco-Schools programme. We were so impressed with all the entries and I’d like to say a massive congratulations to Fishermoss School, in particular the members of the Eco-Committee. We look forward to continuing our work to inspire action for a clean, green and sustainable future.”
Eco-Schools is the largest sustainable schools programme in the world with almost 20million children, young people and educators engaged worldwide in 73 different countries. In Scotland almost 900 schools currently fly the Green Flag proudly while hundreds of others are on their own journey, through our Climate Action Schools framework, to achieve one.
In 2022 we launched the Climate Action Schools framework which builds on existing activity, including Eco-Schools, across Scotland. This has increased opportunities for learning across five core components: learning for sustainability; climate emergency; biodiversity; litter and pollution; and amplifying pupil voices. It is supported by the Scottish Government.
More information can be found at www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/climate-action-schools