Uppingham Community College's climate awareness event

Pupils at a secondary school have hosted a climate awareness event.

Uppingham Community College's event, on Friday September 27, was timed to coincide with a week of campaigning from young people taking place around the world.

Year nine pupil, Mary, organised the event because she wanted to help her friends gain a better understanding of climate issues and offer some practical advice to answer the question: ‘what can we do?’

Pupils were shown examples of e-mails they could write to local MPs and councils and petitions were suggested that they could read and potentially sign.

They were also given a helpful list of things to do such as having holidays closer to home, using public transport more often, eating more locally produced food and cutting down on meat.

Pupils dropping into the lunchtime event also watched a variety of informative video clips including some words from the international student activist, Greta Thunberg.

Locally sourced English apples and pears were also on offer to those who attended.

Mary, said: "When I heard about the climate strike I felt like I wanted to do something too, but I didn't see the point in going to London as it would just pollute the atmosphere even more. Instead, I decided to help organise a climate strike awareness event at my school to raise awareness about the climate emergency and give people ideas of what they can do about it."

Deputy Principal of UCC, David Anderson, said: "Here at UCC we think it is really important that our young people are equipped with the facts about this most important subject. They also need to know what can be done, that they do have a voice and can make a difference in the world."