Earth Day is an annual celebration, held on April 22, for people from all over the world to demonstrate their support for environmental protection.
This year Earth Day was 43 years old and was celebrated in more than 192 countries.
Pupils, parents and staff at Rydal Penrhos Preparatory school joined in the celebrations by coming together to raise awareness of environmental issues.
The festivities were organised so that even the smallest children (aged 2 ½ from the Early Years department) could take part.
Teams included children across the age ranges, all dressed in masks representing endangered animals such as lions, koalas, gorillas, arctic foxes, polar bears, elephants.
The challenging tasks and trials were designed to highlight some global issues. For example, there was hobby-horse racing – a more eco friendly way of travelling. There was a recycling challenge where pupils from as young as 2 ½ through to the 10 year olds had to decide how to recycle items and race against the clock to get them into the correct receptacles, with points deducted for mixing plastic and cardboard.
Other tasks included naming the flags of every country in the world, a nature assault course in the school’s Forest School, and many others.
“As a school that is such a vital part of the local community but that also looks out into the world, days such as Earth Day are important in so many ways” says Headmaster Roger McDuff “These children are learning to live in a world where not only is it important to understand the environment and the effect people can have on it, but in the multicultural world in which we now live, respect for different cultures is also a lesson that cannot be learned too young.”
Denis Hayes, the national coordinator of the first Earth Day, said a few years back that he thought the day had achieved many of its aims."Beyond any doubt," he said in 2009, "today the basic core values are vastly more 'green’, if you will, than they were in the 60's and 70's."
But with a recent global poll showing that public concern over environmental problems such as climate change and biodiversity loss is its lowest in 20 years, it's clear that there's still a need for many more Earth Days.