Empowering young minds at primary school Eco Summit

This week, 70 primary school Eco Champions from ten local schools came together for an Eco Summit event at the London Wetland Centre in Barnes. 

Designed to support schools on their sustainability journey, the Eco Summit offered an immersive day of shared learnings and passions, activities and workshops with local experts. The 70 pupils played a central role in this exciting event. 

The summit kicked off with an inspiring speech from Councillor Julia Neden-Watts, Chair of the Environment, Sustainability, Culture, and Sports Committee, who introduced the new Climate and Nature Strategy and spoke to the importance of young people’s concern about and interest in nature and climate change. 

Throughout the day, teams from Richmond Council, Habitats and Heritage, Community Bluescapes and Royal Holloway University carried out workshops themed around enhancing natural ecosystems, making small changes to help local wildlife and promoting green practices. 

Habitats and Heritage supported Eco Champions to create their own bug hotels, Community BlueScapes carried out pond dipping activities and Royal Holloway University led an eco-poetry workshop, supporting students to craft creative poems based on the sounds of nature. 

Our Air Quality and Climate Change teams led the final interactive sessions of the day, helping students to identify pollutants vs non-pollutants and envisioning the changes they hope to see in the future through a Postcards from Tomorrow activity, where they drew postcards for their 2025 selves. 

Primary schools and parents of students in Richmond upon Thames can access our Climate Resources Hub to discover more climate resources as well as news and information on future events. 

You can also subscribe to our monthly climate newsletter to find out more about local climate and sustainability news, initiatives and events.