Eco-friendly Yorkshire pupils win trip to Lakes with Fogle

PUPILS from a Yorkshire school have won a competition to be crowned as the country’s “eco-friendliest teens” in a scheme aimed at saving energy and promoting recycling.

Ilkley Grammar School impressed a panel of judges including television presenter Ben Fogle with a project which encourages pupils and teachers to be more energy efficient by making sure all computers and lights remain switched off during lunch hours and when not in use.

The initiative also saw pupils create a garden of vegetables for the school to be use in food technology lessons.

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They were named as winners of npower’s Climate Cops SOS programme and will now join Fogle on a trip to an outward bound centre in the Lake District.

Fogle, who is an ambassador for the programme, said: “I have been really impressed with the entrants but Ilkley Grammar School’s entry really stood out for the passion they showed and their enthusiasm to make a real difference in the local area.”

A new national survey has revealed that children are so concerned about the environment they would rather learn about it than traditional subjects such as science and history.

The survey of 1,027 youngsters aged seven to 14, by the Co-operative, revealed that 82 per cent of children rated learning about green issues as important, putting it ahead of science, history, IT and art, and only slightly behind English and maths.

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Two-thirds want to learn more about wildlife and nature, almost as many – 62 per cent – want to learn about green issues and helping to save the planet, and almost half – 47 per cent – want to know more about where food comes from.

This compares with just 37 per cent who want to learn more about art, 36 per cent for IT and 35 per cent for sciences, the survey found.

Almost all the children had concerns about people damaging the planet, and almost as many 93 per cent said they recycled.

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