PITCH FOR THE PLANET

Well, what a special day that we were invited to!

Our four Year 5 children got to visit the historic Royal Institution in London for The Pitch for the Planet event (on the hottest day of the year!) but luckily we did not have to walk far. The company Countrystyle had sponsored a coach for a group of students to attend the event.

Professor Becky Parker from the Langton School for Girls (who is probably the most enthusiastic, passionate and fabulous person you will ever meet) has set up the charity 'project earth' and organised for a variety of children under 18 to come to London from all over the world to present their pitch (a product or and idea) in regards to how they can help the planet. Well, we were all blown away but the creativity, intelligence and passion of young people and how they can help the Earth in the light of the current climate crisis. Becky gave these young people their voice and helped to connect them with investors and people from the correct field of expertise and industry.

Just to give you a couple of examples - there was one group who designed a product that makes the water flow more efficiently through a new tunnel system in order to use less water when cooling data and AI centres (many people are unaware that this is even an issue).

A girl from the Netherlands decided to investigate micro-organisms and different stone structures. She suggested to add a certain type of rock with more crevices on off-shore windfarms in order to increase biodiversity.

One girl from England is developing an app in order to track and recognise the movement of illegal fishing boats.

One of the the younger students decided to make a card game about blue Wales as they absorb a big amount of CO2 and she wanted to teach the rest of the world.

Millie, Farren, Jaxon and Ziva stood up in front of 400 people and presented their pitch incredibly well. I am so proud of them and they received so many compliments afterwards. Their pitch was not about a product but about a study they had conducted within the school to investigate whether biodiversity makes you happy and they found that 'yes it does' . Children and adults can use walks in nature for learning breaks and to make themselves feel calmer. The government and local authorities can use this study when thinking about supporting nature based initiatives and approving housing applications that would take away natural spaces.

Not only were we be inspired by all the pitches but there were also very inspirational guest speakers there, including an astronaut Meganne Christion, Bonnie Garmus who wrote the famous book 'lessons in Chemistry', Yasmin Ali, Abbi Davis and Mark Miodownik working in energy and in different scientific fields of work.

Last, but definitely not least was a Science demonstration by Nathan Turner from wonderstruck - there was everything there from burning gases to exploding teddies. Very memorable!

Building our pond is our next project at school to help biodiversity.

Who know which ideas the children come up with next? Maybe we will create a climate cafe and discuss ideas - as a young lad from Scotland suggested.