Schools Climate Summit
On Thursday 14 November a cross-campus group of student leaders attended a Climate Summit for schools within the Division of Jagajaga organised by local MP Kate Thwaites. Students first heard talks from both Kate Thwaites, MP as well as Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy the Hon Mark Butler, MP on the importance of combating climate change and how this issue is currently being addressed in Parliament.
Kate and Mark also shared statistics on how Australian youth now rate climate change as the number one issue they care about as well as how students can ensure their voices are heard on this issue at a national level. Besides asking questions and sharing their ideas and opinions with Kate and Mark, students from different schools were also given the opportunity to share and exchange ideas with each other on how their schools are addressing climate change and working to be more sustainable. Overall it was a great summit and we’re looking forward to attending the next one!
Student Reflections
“At the Climate Summit, we were able to discuss the issue of climate change with representatives from other schools and members of the local parliament. We shared sustainable initiatives which we have implemented at our schools and we were also able to learn about the initiatives at other school’s which provided us with ideas that we could adopt to make our own school a more sustainable place.” – Emmy
“The Climate Change Summit was an incredible approach in tackling the prominent issue, climate change. I was able to engage in discussions with students from other schools and recognise certain practices they take in their school in order to tackle this issue. The Summit acted as a great platform to express initiatives and practices our school has undertaken, and hence encouraging other schools to take similar initiatives into account.” – Rohan
“I found the Climate Summit a good way to share ideas between schools in a relaxed environment about actions that are already being taken/could be taken to address climate change. I think it would have been beneficial if it was on a larger scale with more schools involved so we could have gotten a wider range of ideas and opinions.” – Vaida
