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Environmental Award for Corfu 2nd High School in Riga, Latvia

Latvia
21 Nov 2018 / 16:37

CORFU. Three proud pupils went to Riga, the capital of Latvia, from 6 to 9 November as representatived of Corfu 2nd High School to receive the ENVRIPlus Award.

ENVRIPlus is a Horizon 2020 programme bringing together Environmental and Earth System Research Infrastructures, projects and networks together with technical specialist partners.

Four European secondary schools - two from the Netherlands, one from Italy and Corfu 2nd High School - received their awards for the winning scientific experiments they performed in the school competition that ENVRIplus hosted for the second time.



ENVRIplus wants to challenge young students to think about the Grand Challenges our planet is facing. The research measures the amount of natural resources available and the amount we consume. The school also took part in an international school environmental network for environmental consciousness and renewable energy sources and for their educational needs visited a photovoltaic park in Corfu.

The 94 pupils who took part in the research used an application to measure how many 'hectares of planet' are required per person to support their way of life and how much land we would need if everyone lived in the same way.



The scientists of the future

The results were used to draw conclusions and produce statistics and the winning team created an extremely helpful and informative video using the platform's graphics.

The pupils in the team are Maria Diamantina Sayiadinou, Nefeli Boskolo and Natalia Lukia Kardami and they were supervised by chemistry teacher Panayiotis Dimisianos and literature teacher Ada Michalopoulou.

Just like last year, when the 2nd High School won a similar award in a biodiversity competition, females dominated. The interests of the girls in the winning team include Physics, Chemistry, Computer Biology, Molecular and Genetic Biology, Renewable Energy Sources and Neurobiology.

It was encouraging for the pupils to discover that there are opportunities available for them with the subjects they have chosen to study - even if it is abroad!

Apart from the award itself, the children were enthusiastic about opportunity the European competition gave them to travel to Latvia and learn about the history and culture of the people there.

See the video created by the pupils: