We are delighted to share a blog written by students Siddant and Vedhant, from Reading School, UK, delivering a Global Goals project for the 2020-21 GSL Global Goals Competition.
Their project is among over 957 social action projects currently running as part of the GSL movement and we are excited to be supporting them to design and lead positive social change in their community.
This project has been great fun so far, would recommend to others to make a difference.
Project Summary
We are the NoEmissioners. This project is based on the issue of rising CO₂ emissions. Since the industrial revolution, humanity has released near 1500000000000 tons of Carbon Dioxide. This is more than half a quintillion table tennis balls. If all of these table tennis balls were stacked over each other, the length of the stack would be 2.3 light years. In 2019, we still produced 37000000000 tons more.
We have collated our thoughts on a website with a blog and more information on why climate change is so harmful. Our aim is to raise awareness of the problems that climate change brings across the country. We are aiming to expose these problems primarily from petrol/diesel cars. As well as this, the website also shows the most promising solutions to climate change. It also links to a YouTube account that presents our individual projects that together to show the potential of change. As well as YouTube, an active Instagram account adds interactive activities and is achieving increasing interest from broader social networks.
We are in the process of conducting interviews with members of the public and staff within our school on whether they would make the switch from petrol/diesel to electric/hybrid/clean cars. Due to Covid-19 and lockdown, activities to promote cycling instead of cars are hindered.
Our Journey
Since the start of the journey, our group has successfully made a website, holding all of our ideas and expressing them to the world. We have also created an Instagram account, where viewers can interact and take part in activities. In addition to this, we started a YouTube channel, where we give an immersive view of our work, and creating a Minecraft world that lets the viewer experience the problems that CO₂ emissions bring.
The problems that came with creating all of this were numerous. One of the problems we encountered was deciding which member had which role. We also struggled to think big enough when working on this project. This was because we did not think the project would be successful and had low hopes.
Our Next Chapter
Our goal is to spread our message to as many people as possible. Our current plan for the future is to perform interviews with many individuals. This includes a few scientists, a few teachers and a few environmentalists. We have created a Google Form that is about electric/hybrid cars, we ask people to share reasons why they do not want to make the switch to electric cars and that if they have already made the switch, we ask them why they did so. If the number of responses in the form reaches 500 or 1000, we can share this collective feedback to certain car companies to improve.
Social Media Channels
The 2020-21 GSL Global Goals Competition is now open and runs until June 2021. If you belong to one of the 500+ teams of students currently delivering a social action project as part of the competition we would love to hear from you and feature your blog and project photos on our website to inspire others.
