Forty years after the first Earth Day, the world is in greater peril than ever. Earth Day is an opportunity for individuals, corporations and governments to join together and create a global green economy.

This year, the British International School in Bratislava joined the global Earth Day network and held its first Earth day organized by the Eco-committee. Consisting of various activities and workshops it aimed to raise awareness among young people about pressing issues threatening our planet.

How did we celebrate the Earth day?

In the morning, creative activities were prepared for Primary school children.

They had a presentation on importance of being eco-friendly and being aware of the global warming effects and consequences. Then children were decorating the pots and seeding plants. It was amazing to see how enthusiastic were the children and we always hear positive feedback when we meet them in the corridors.

Children also participated in a quiz and managed to answer the hard ones as well.

On the left is the group who called themselves Savers.

School uniforms were left at home and Year 7, 8 and 9 changed our school in a mix of green and blue. A speech in a gym was made and a short movie was projected. By making a Mexican wave, students demonstrated that everybody is important and we can make a change if we all unite.

In the afternoon, there were various workshops and activities. One of the workshops was ethical shopping workshop followed by creating and decorating own reusable shopping bag.

Year 8 and 9 were painting the eco-wall outside the school and cleaning the local area.

One of the essential ways of reducing one’s carbon footprint is becoming vegetarian, or better a vegan. An awareness raising campaign was done at school accompanied by the presentation and vegan food tasting which was really delicious.

We’ve put a pledge wall in the corridor and so far we have received very positive feedbacks. Earth day was a day when all students and teachers united and did something to help the planet.