Year 9 Student have gathered to celebrate ‘DotFest’, an environmental festival showcasing their knowledge from Global Citizenship.

Miss Gawley opened proceedings by talking about some of the immense changes she has seen in society during her lifetime, including increasing global culture through the proliferation of affordable international travel, changes in shopping and fashion and a move towards becoming a throwaway society.

It was in this context that each of the Global Citizenship groups gave their presentations, and 9P1 started us off with their analysis of food miles. This included an analysis of a meal, reviewing components within the food. The cake for desert clocked in 13,000 miles, using ingredients from across the globe. The presentation explored the carbon footprint of the entire supply chain, including the 'final mile’ carried out by us as customers. The presentation also noted that the solution is more nuanced than just buying locally, as over 1.5 million inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa depend on exporting food for their livelihoods.

Class 9P2 spoke next about plastic pollution, and explored the history of plastics production from early materials first introduced in 1862, to the Bakelite revolution in 1907 with the production of the first fully synthetic plastic suitable for mass production.

A musical interlude from one of our bands was then followed by class 9P3 picking up the baton of plastic pollution in the context of ocean pollution, noting that 8 million pieces of plastic enter the sea globally each day, causing grave harm to aquatic life. This risk is augmented by other pollutants including oil, industrial chemicals, sewage and fertilisers.

Class 9P4 chose to focus on fast fashion, beginning with the candid admission that young people are big users of fast fashion. The industry causes huge environmental concerns with the use of resources in manufacturing materials, further manufacturing the clothes, and then transporting them across the world for a product with a very short lifespan, often discarded whilst still fully usable.

Another musical break from one of our talented bands then saw students from 9Q1 talk about deforestation of the Amazon, a giant forest network spanning nine countries. Often called the ‘lungs of the Earth’, surface wild fires and logging are wiping out swathes of precious wildlife including frogs, reptiles, birds and mammals.

Class 9Q2 followed a different path, delivering a dance performance to a beautiful sung live vocal as their contribution to the festival.

Class 9Q3 gave a detailed presentation about bees, starting with the symbiotic relationship between bees and plants that has offered effective pollination of crops for millennia, and the colossal economic impact of a declination in honeybee population. Indeed, some areas of China were cited as having lost all natural pollinators. The presentation acknowledged the difficult relationship between a bee’s natural habitat and the need for the built environment, but discussed how we can help offset that difficulty with bee friendly planting.

Class 9Q4 brought the presentations to a close with a presentation about air pollution, including fossil fuels, biological molecules and particulates, quoting research suggesting a 1-2 reduction in lifespan due to air pollution. The presentation also offered the astonishing estimate that fast fashion creates as much as 10% of air pollution.

The celebration drew to a close with some more rousing musical numbers, before the distribution of reusable water bottles to every student, allowing them to make a positive change straight away.