Prestwick Academy wins Provost's Footprint Challenge

Prestwick Academy has scooped this year's Provost's Footprint Challenge.

To win the environmental competition organised by South Ayrshire Council, the young people ran a school survey, to identify problem areas and then focused their activities on reducing single use plastics, recycling at school and at home and reducing energy. The judging panel were impressed by the team's ability to demonstrate their survey results, their excellent information recording and communication skills. The team also involved the whole school which was another positive. As always, it was a hard task for the judges to choose from such a wide range of interesting and innovative projects. This year the schools had energy awareness campaigns, food growing, bee hotels and biodiversity work, fair trade and the creation of Eco-bricks from waste plastics.

South Ayrshire Provost, Helen Moonie, said:

"The standard of the projects is always very high, so well done to the competitors. "The challenge highlights not only environmental issues in schools but in the wider community as well. This is vital as only by working together can we tackle our environmental footprint. "I would like to thank everyone who took part; all the entries were thought provoking and had a good understanding of our environmental challenges."

Ben and Euan from S2 were part of Prestwick's Eco- group, they said: "We worked really hard this year and we are so happy to have won the award. It's great that the school is doing so much to try to reduce its environmental footprint!"

Mark Anderson, Head Teacher at Prestwick Academy said:

"We are very proud of what the pupils of Prestwick Academy's Eco group have achieved this year; their hard work and dedication has paid off. We hope they can continue to bring environmental issues to the forefront and encourage our young people to look after their environment. We are looking forward to next year's challenge!"