Tag Archive for: competition

Speaking 4 the Planet

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10 Year Anniversary Evaluation 2013 – 2022

Speaking 4 the Planet is an Arts-based competition for young people. It invites participants to express themselves and their ideas about a sustainable world through the following modes:
• Speaking (prepared and impromptu)
• Drama (impromptu)
• Art (prepared and impromptu)
• Writing (prepared and impromptu)
• Video
• Memes
• Performance poetry
• Song

Originating in 2013 at The Jannali High School in Sydney, Australia, as an initiative for high school students, S4P has evolved to include primary schools (Kids 4 the Planet), universities and adults (Adults 4 Planet A). Ten years after its birth, these elements emerge:

Schools/Youth

  1. Increased student confidence and competence in speaking up. They describe themselves as ‘advocates’.
  2. Helped students take on leadership roles.
  3. Increased environmental awareness and activity at schools. Participation has stimulated school-based environmental education initiatives.
  4. Inspired whole-school involvement in preparation for the competitions held at schools.
  5. Expanded understanding of the social, political and economic elements of sustainability – not just the environment.
  6. Established local networks of students. ‘We learn that we are not alone,’ said one concerned student.

Teachers

  1. Increased teacher awareness and pedagogical changes, including increased integration and connections to multiple curriculum areas.
  2. Increased awareness of the connections between sustainability and core competencies.

Communities

  1. Improved relations between schools and local councils, businesses, and NGOs.
  2. Increased appreciation of the role of the Arts in sustainability and in bringing about change.
  3. Created public speaking and employment opportunities outside of school: Toastmasters, local councils, community events, AGMs, youth events.
  4. Influenced the World Environmental Education Congress Secretariat to hold youth events with their biennial conferences.
  5. Provided artworks for used in climate action campaigns and marches.

Future

Speaking 4 the Planet will continue to be available for use as an education initiative highly effective in raising awareness, improving pedagogy, inspiring action, building networks, and influencing individual choices and broader policies.
S4P will continue to evolve and adapt to need and interest. In the near future, S4P will include these elements:
• Competitions for university students
• Global competitions
• Competitions for adults and community organisations

If you are interested in finding out how you can adapt the S4P initiative for your audience and purpose, please contact Phil on phil@speaking4theplanet.org.au

Please find links to two videos done by 7yr old students to support the use of a WED theme and SDG 4 in the conduct of sustainability and arts competitions in Sydney:

• Only One Earth

• Education for All 

Join the Earth Prize 2023

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The Earth Prize is an annual $200,000 environmental sustainability competition for students around the world between the ages of 13 and 19 that rewards the teams whose projects and ideas have the most potential to address environmental issues.

As part of the competition, participants have access to mentorship by university students from top universities and exclusive learning content covering key environmental sustainability concepts and featuring young environmental change-makers from around the world.

Through The Earth Prize competition, students are inspired, educated, mentored and empowered to solve environmental sustainability problems.

The winning team will receive a prize of $100,000, to be split in half between the team and their school. Three runner-up schools will be awarded $25,000. The Earth Prize will also recognize three Mentors, who will receive $5,000 each, and an Educator who will receive $10,000.

Students and teachers can register on The Earth Prize website until November 30th.

Earth Prize: a $200,000 environmental sustainability competition for students

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Great opportunities for students and teachers committed to environmental issues: the Earth Prize is here! The Earth Prize is an environmental sustainability competition open to teenage students everywhere.  It will recognize the students and schools with the best solutions to accelerate positive change towards environmental sustainability, as judged by The Earth Prize Adjudicating Panel.

Every participant will engage with original bespoke materials and get personalized mentorship from university students. They will also have the opportunity to interact with our world-renowned Ambassadors and showcase their solutions to a global audience.

The winning solution will have real-world impact potential, and the winning team will receive $100,000 (from a $200,000 total prize), to be split between their school and the team members.

The registration phase runs from 1st September to 31st October. Students and supervisors are required to register for The Earth Prize using the online platform.

Upon completing registration, teams and their supervisors will be granted access to bespoke online learning material, mentoring by university students (“The Earth Prize Mentors’’), and the portal where they will submit their Registration Confirmation.
Read all the participation guidelines here

The Earth Prize is a multi-phase competition: during the submission phase (1st November 2021 – 31st January 2022) students will submit their Fresh Ideas. Then, the Earth Prize Scholars will be are announced (February 2022) and the top ten teams will are selected and announced. After a social media engagement campaign the final idea will be presented to the Adjudicating Panel. The Earth Prize Ceremony will be Saturday, 26th March 2022 when the the Earth Prize Winner and 3 Runners-up will be announced.

The team recognized as “The Earth Prize Winner” will be provided with a USD 100,000 prize. Fifty percent (50%) of the prize will be granted to the team’s school to be used in a project focusing on environmental sustainability, and fifty percent (50%) as an educational scholarship grant to be split evenly amongst the team members.

Three teams will be recognized as “The Earth Prize Runner-up” whose schools will be awarded with a USD 25,000 prize each.  One prize of USD 12,500 will be awarded to The Earth Prize Educator of the Year. And one prize of USD 12,500 will be awarded to The Earth Prize Mentor of the Year.

The Prize is organised by the Earth Foundation, founded in 2020 in Geneva (Switzerland), to inspire, educate, mentor, and empower students, schools, researchers, and young entrepreneurs with innovative ideas to tackle environmental challenges. Through its initiatives The Earth Foundation strives to build its very own ecosystem.

Education as if People and Planet Matter. Present your essay and win 5,000£

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Schumacher College is celebrating its 30th anniversary launching an international essay competition on the theme of “Education as if People and Planet Matter”, in collaboration with Resurgence & Ecologist magazine.
Schumacher College has pioneered and promoted a very different paradigm of values-based, holistic education over the past 30 years.

Today’s education system presents young people with a world still dominated by materialism, consumerism and the heedless exploitation of both people and the planet. It’s hopelessly ‘unfit for purpose’ as we wrestle with today’s converging crises of the Climate Emergency, ecological collapse, racial inequality and worsening social injustice.
This educational system is in urgent need of transformation if we wish to see education remaining relevant to the age of ecology and serving the purpose of the regenerative culture and sustaining the integrity of our precious planet earth.

Competition rules. Schumacher College invites you to write an essay under the title “Education as if People and Planet Matter”. The essay should be addressed to general readers, and not to either education or sustainability specialists as such. The length of the essay should be between 1,000 and 1,500 words.

The Entry Fee is £10 ( or $15.00 or €15.00) and this fee will cover the administration of the competition, with any surplus going to support learning programmes at Schumacher College.

The winner will receive a £5,000 cash prize, with an opportunity to present their essay at the anniversary event at Schumacher College in autumn 2021. A £2,000 cash prize will go to the second place, and £1,000 to the third runner-up.  The winner and two runners-up will receive their awards at the anniversary event.

Apart from the cash prize, we are also planning to publish a book of essays on “Education as if People and Planet Matter”.

To enter, complete the form.

The final deadline for the submission is 1st July 2021. Winners will be announced: 1st October

Speaking 4 the Planet, join the competition

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Speaking for the Planet is an international Arts-based competition for high school students. These events have World Environment Day themes and the Sustainability Development Goals as their focus. The competition categories are speaking, drama,art, video-making and writing.

Kids 4 the Planet is the primary school equivalent.

This competition is by invitation and it is unfunded. Until now it involved schools from England, Slovenia, Hungary, Brazil, Canada, Thailand, Vietnam, US, Czech Republic, New Zealand, Kenya, Laos, Palau, Netherlands, Sweden.

Speaking 4 the Planet encourages participants to think differently. If we are to achieve sustainable communities, we will need people to be able to think creatively – often away from the mainstream – and express and support novel ideas in public arenas. We will need people who can persuade decision-makers and community members to choose sustainability options and directions. Speaking 4 the Planet provides opportunities for students to offer quirky solutions and build skills in communication, advocacy and change.

Let’s participate in the competition 2020 by Friday 25 September! The focus is the World Environment Day theme and the Sustainability Development Goals. Events are registered on the UN’s website. Events take much of a school day. They are normally held in schools or council chambers. The program includes welcome addresses from the hosts and sponsors, a video with information on the specific topic of the event.

A student and teacher Resource Pack is provided to help students prepare for the competition. The package includes the judging criteria, which are linked to curriculum requirements for speaking and drama.

Categories

Speech 3-4 minute speech. Participants send a video of themselves delivering the speech. A written copy of the speech will also need to be sent (in Word). In English.
Art Participants send 3 photos of the artwork they produce.
Meme In English.
Writing Participants are asked to write a (only!) 30 word piece on the topic. In English.

Topic

Bridging the needs of People and Planet: If we don’t get the human stuff right, we can’t get the environmental stuff right. This topic is deliberately linked to the theme of the 2021 World Environmental Education Congress, Building Bridges.

If you are interested in these initiatives, please write to the director, Phil Smith, to have more information (phil@speaking4theplanet.org.au).

 

See the 2019 edition