The first Speaking 4 the Planet competition was at The Jannali High School on World Environment Day (WED), 5th June, 2013. WED is the United Nations’ principal means of promoting awareness and protection of the environment. Since then, S4P has evolved to accommodate opportunities and regional sustainability priorities, it has picked up on the Sustainable Development Goals and it has been re-shaped and re-named as Kids 4 the Planet for primary schools and Speaking UP 4 the Planet for teacher education students at universities.

Speaking 4 the Planet has also experimented with new approaches and categories. Competition categories now include speaking, drama, visual art, writing, memes and video. The variety enables students to understand, represent, and express their views on issues in ways that best suit their interests and capacities.

S4P creates opportunities for youth voice. The sustainability changes that the world needs won’t occur by following existing dogma and practices. New thinking is required. Youthful thinking is required. The arts open influential ways of communicating, ways that invite students through school curriculum areas typically omitted from sustainability education. Speaking 4 the Planet is founded on the beliefs that Science provides the information we need to achieve sustainability, and the Arts deliver the vehicles for transformation. Science provides the data; the Arts change the world.

Since 2013, events have been run in metropolitan and regional NSW. The Eastern Alliance for Sustainable Learning hosted an online event in 2020 for the five Melbourne councils in the alliance. In 2019 and 2020, S4P was held in Christchurch, New Zealand. Also in 2019, S4P was held in Thailand as a significant part of a Youth Camp that preceded the 2019 World Environmental Education Congress in Bangkok. An international, online competition was piloted at the end of 2020. In 2020, the first national event for trainee teachers was held in conjunction with Deakin University, Victoria.

Kids 4 the Planet (NSW)

Kids 4 the Planet followed a similar format to the S4P events. At Lakemba Public School in NSW, where all three K4P events have been held so far, the competitions were for Grades 5 and 6. But with the encouragement of the Principal, all grades did some learning and activities on the designated topic. So, on the day, the school hall was decorated with incredible art works, displays and messages. For each of those events, students were trained to be the MCs.  

In the 2019 K4P event, again in NSW, an extra category was added: STEM. It was run as an impromptu activity. Students were given about 90 minutes to design an environment and propose a management plan to protect a local, endangered species of frog. 

2019 WEEC Youth Camp

S4P and the GLOBE Student Exchange at Laem Phak Bia, Phetchaburi Province, Thailand

Speaking 4 the Planet was an integral part of the inaugural World Environmental Education Congress (WEEC) Youth Camp that took place on 2-3 November 2019 at the royally initiated Laem Phak Bia Environmental Research and Development (LERD) project in Phetchaburi province, Thailand. The event was held in conjunction with the 2019 World Environmental Education Congress, which took place in Bangkok from 3-7 November 2019.

Phil Smith initiated the idea of the camp and worked with the Faculty of the Environment at Kasetsart University in Thailand and GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) to run a Youth Camp in the lead-up to the 2019 World Environmental Education Congress in Bangkok. Funded by the Chaipattana Foundation, the camp created a space to build skills and international connections for youth; it also helped provide a voice for young people at the Congress.

His Late Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej established the Chaipattana Foundation to undertake research and projects that contribute to national and social development. Much of the work focuses on the sustainable management of resources and improving the quality of the environment.

The two-day event included a scientific tour and discussion of LERD and activities designed to build networks, increase understanding of sustainability and help a student prepare to give an address at the WEEC opening ceremony.

Phil Smith, Speaking 4 the Planet, conducted a sustainability workshop with the students and teachers, and prepared the student to give the address on behalf of all the Youth Camp participants.

For this first Youth Camp, approximately 50 students and 17 teachers came from Taiwan, Nepal, India, Philippines, Japan and Thailand. The students were aged between 13 and 18.

The organisers of the next WEEC in Prague have taken the idea of a youth camp and adapted it for their own setting and needs.

Phansa Duangtip, a 17 year old student from Plutaluang Wittaya School, Chonburi Province, Thailand, was chosen to speak on behalf of the students. Her talk was entitled Connected Youth: Connected Futures.

Speaking UP 4 the Planet

With the support and encouragement of colleagues at Deakin University in Victoria in 2020, a version of S4P for teacher education students was designed. Speaking UP 4 the Planet was a national online event. Participants were invited to create a three-minute speech starting with the tag line, “I will be a climate change education leader in my community…”.  Zoom events in universities around Australia sent state representatives to a national competition on Friday 14 August.

Vietnam

Golden Path Academics Vietnam (GPA) hosted the inaugural Speaking 4 the Planet competition in Vietnam in 2020. The topic for the competition was Bridging the needs of People and Planet: If we don’t get the human stuff right, we can’t get the environmental stuff right.

There were two age categories in the competition: 9-12 years and 13-18 years, each with a winner for each of four competition categories: Speaking, Writing, Art and Meme.

2020 was the first year this event has run in Victoria and this year’s theme was I am Water.

Victorian students had the opportunity to submit entries in one of six categories: Speaking, Drama, Art, Writing, Meme, Video.

An entirely online event, the competition was a great opportunity for students to express themselves and their feelings for the environment based on the theme of water. 

The competition was open to schools in the EASL area (Knox, Manningham, Maroondah, Whitehorse and Yarra Ranges Councils) for students aged 9-16 (Grade 3 to Year 10). Judging was undertaken in two different age bandings.

This program was delivered in partnership with the Eastern Alliance for Sustainable Learning (EASL) and Environment Education Victoria (EEV) and was supported by funding from the Port Philip Bay Fund (DELWP).

Global 2020 S4P

The topic for this inaugural international 2020 online event was Bridging the needs of People and Planet: If we don’t get the human stuff right, we can’t get the environmental stuff right.

There were two age categories: high school students and teacher education students at university, and four competition categories: Speaking, Writing, Art and Meme. Participants were also invited to be quirky, original and divergent in their presentations.

Sustainable Ōtautahi-Christchurch

Sustainable Ōtautahi-Christchurch and the Christchurch branch of NZ Association for Environmental Education linked up in 2019 to bring Speaking 4 the Planet to NZ, inspired by the work of Phil Smith.  Our first year saw 13 schools plus some home-schooling families enter students to the competition across the three categories—visual art, prepared speech, and spoken word. The competition event was held in the central library, Tūranga on 7th June with public attending over the course of the day. Feedback indicated a desire for the competition to continue in 2020. 

We had the library booked and all information out to schools by early March with initial registrations of interest looking promising and then Covid19 hit and the country went into lockdown for 6 weeks. We decided to continue with the competition but run it as a purely online event. This was successful despite a number of schools withdrawing due to the stress of juggling online learning demands. In the end 12 schools and 3 individuals entered, which meant 39 participants across the categories – visual art, meme, prepared speech, and spoken word. The judging occurred online and prizes were announced during a live feed on June 5th.

The winning entries and further information about S4PChch can be found on the Sustainable Christchurch website or Facebook.

SOC and NZAEE Chch are already planning the 2021 event and intend to be back in a public space bigger and brighter! To contact the Christchurch team email Jocelyn at chchnzaee@gmail.com

The New Zealand 2021 S4P event is under way.

Resources

For more information on our past S4P events, check out our:

• Support packages
• Evaluation reports
• Posters