Lord Provost of Edinburgh supports Plant-for-the-Planet

On the 1st of October the second Academy in Edinburgh took place. 45 children from four schools learned about the climate crisis and what they can do against it.

Before it should start, we went outside to enjoy the sunshine during some short icebreaker games.

For the presentation participants from the first Academy in spring came from the other end of town, to take part in their first Academy as Climate Justice Ambassadors. Despite the understandable nervousness they held an impressive presentation. Being Ambassadors apparently was a lot of fun for them.

After that, the group was split up into three smaller ones, to play the World Game. As regards geographical knowledge one could teach the children too much, since they seemed very familiar with the topic already. Still, they seemed very impressed when they learned about how unequally population, money and emissions are distributed around the world.

After lunch break we could go back into the sun: we’ve been extraordinarily lucky for this very warm and sunny day – something that doesn’t happen too often in Scotland. Therefore, planting trees was even more fun. Unfortunately, here in Edinburgh planting season is still a couple of weeks ahead, thus we could only plant 15 saplings and six big trees as symbolic act. But in the future there will be more!

Apart from planting trees, Climate Justice Ambassadors want to spread the idea of Plant-for-the-Planet. Therefore, after planting, we thought about how we should do this. Many children wanted to present their ideas to their parents in the afternoon – unfortunately we couldn’t have thirty ambassadors on stage.

Yet, who could participate in this presentation, already started to think about what their Plant-for-the-Planet Club can do in the future. Someone wants to write a rap on the initiative. And another groups wants to march down the Royal Mile in Edinburgh to demonstrate for Climate Justice!

With many parents and the Lord Provost, the mayor of Edinburgh, present the closing ceremony started. The new Ambassadors presented what they had learned today. Our special guest seemed very impressed: “I was delighted to lend my support to the Plant-for-the-Planet initiative today and it was great so see such enthusiasm for the cause amongst the children. I sincerely hope they keep up the good work and spread the word amongst their family and friends – which is exactly what I’ll be doing.”

Last, but not least certificates were handed out und a campaign photo with the Lord Provost taken. A very good Academy!

Plant-for-the-Planet says thank you to Earth Calling and the Woodland Trust, as well as to Duddingston Primary School as the host for the event. And of course a big thank you to all participants.