Hunain School, initiated an Environmental Writing Competition across three schools including Al Reef and Hamdan Bin Zayed. The aim was to use cross-curricular techniques of Science and English content and vocab to stimulate literary pieces that echoed Sustainability.
There were various categories for grade groups and either an individual poetry category or a group-writing piece, which entailed a 3D model or invention.
The judges were from the NYUAD campus as well as Tara Golshan from the Jane Goodall Institute.
“This was a difficult competition to judge. The work of the students was highly creative, insightful and mindful of the challenges facing our planet today. These young people are already making a significant impact on our future and I am so proud of all of them.” Tara Golshan, Executive Director, Education the Jane Goodall Institute.
Students had to create a Gallery of their work and they did an incredible job. Not only was it aesthetically pleasing, it also echoed a message for the UAE to come together to save the environment. Hunain School, placed first in many categories, was closely rivaled by winners from AL Reef.
NYUAD judges said: “We had the pleasure of judging the 8th and 9th grade writing projects. We were very impressed with the creativity and hard work we saw, and it made our decision difficult. It was clear that the students spent a lot of time researching and learned a lot about environmental issues. We were inspired by the student’s passion and we are excited to see the how this passion will transfer to environmental activism in the future. Congratulations to everyone who participated.”
The function saw many community members, parents and organizations gather together to celebrate initiatives for environmental preservation.
The projects were well researched and presented as animal stories, magazine articles, short stories, poems, dialogues and various other genres, the visuals and word choice was emotive and evoked the need for change.
The visuals were an array of future inventions and models highlighting our current world crisis.
Students were truly passionate about this project and about sharing it with the rest of the school community.
The experience was truly a wonderful way for the youth of the Abu Dhabi Education and Knowledge schools to be active role players in their environment and to contribute to the Roots & Shoots family.
Killian Marie Dumont, the Community Outreach Intern at NYUAD said:“It was such a pleasure to host the Roots & Shoots Environmental Writing competition on campus. It was inspiring to see the passion and effort the students put into their projects, and to see how excited they were to share what they had done. The awards ceremony fell during NYU’s ‘Go Green Week’ and perfectly represented the UAE’s commitment to sustainability and environmentalism. I came away from the ceremony with a profound sense of hope. Thanks to the efforts of young girls like these around the world, I have hope that our environment will be protected and respected in the future.”
Hajra Khan, Teacher, Hunain School
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