Abu Dhabi students’ green video wins award

Al Bashair Private School pupils with the certificate for the UAE Schools Environmental Sustainability Competition. Courtesy Canon

ABU DHABI // A three-minute video produced by students at Al Bashair Private School won first place in the UAE Schools Environmental Sustainability Competition.

The video showed how students are conserving energy and encouraging sustainability at their school and among their peers.

Al Bashair Private School was rewarded with a garden and children were taught how to sustainably grow plants and crops.

The video was the final project in a two-month campaign with 33 schools, aimed at increasing awareness among students of their natural surroundings. The campaign also encouraged participating students to showcase how their schools were involved in sustainable initiatives that could serve as an example to students across the country.

Five of these schools were chosen by a judging panel to create videos on sustainability. Students from the five schools will also get a preview of the Wadi Wurayah National Park, home to more than 100 species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians, and more than 300 species of plants.

The winning school was chosen from four submitted videos.

Organised by Canon Middle East, and supported by Emirates Wildlife Society-World Wide Fund for Nature, the competition was designed to increase students’ awareness of environmental issues and encourage them to find solutions to local ecological problems.

Students from the winning school were given on-site guidance by Desert Group, a landscape company from the UAE. The company onated its time to design, prepare and with the assistance of the students, plant the low-water consumption garden.

“The garden has been created with gravel in order to make it a more functional space as well as to lower water consumption in this area,” said Jacquis Tolsma, project manager for Desert Group. “We also planted fruit trees in order to make the garden edible and provide shade to lower the exposure of soil to direct sunlight.”

Sawsan Tarabishy, principal at Al Bashair Private School, said: “Our students were truly amazed by the number of votes and support they received through social media. Pupils began to ask about the meaning of sustainability. They experienced first-hand how small environmental initiatives at the school can have a bigger impact on society.”