Pupils from secondary schools across Scotland entered the Dragons’ Den at the Changeworks national Make Waste History Summit 2011 which took place today at Edinburgh Napier University. Liberton High School won the final vote after successfully pitching their enterprising project idea to reduce plastic bottles in school to an esteemed panel of dragons and their peers.
Liberton High School’s winning team was made up of members Ellie McCallum, Emily Robertson, Claire Bunting, Rowan Moran and Tyler Wilson.
Fiona Lundius, Liberton High School teacher said: “I am blown away, absolutely gob smacked. We put our eco schools committee together on the last day of term where we launched workshops including Changeworks. The kids were told yesterday that they were to come to the Make Waste History summit and within 24 hours they’ve won it. That’s been fantastic for them and for me and for our school. I think if they can go back with the enthusiasm and the ideas they’ve shown the school they can only benefit the school. This is a fantastic starting point.”
Winning team members Tyler Wilson and Ellie McCallum added: “We’re really happy! Everyone voted for us because they thought our presentation was really good. It was really good and really exciting. We were speechless when we won.”
The Summit opened with Ally Tibbitt’s inspirational story of successful social entrepreneurship with award-winning community sustainability development initiative, Greener Leith.
Ally said:- “It was a tremendous honor to be asked to be a keynote speaker, I hope I did it justice. What was really inspiring was hearing from the school pupils. They had so many ideas it was hard to take them all in. I think Liberton High school deserved to win, they had a really great idea and a really brilliant pitch. It was great to see it go to an Edinburgh school.”
The summit offered pupils from schools in Scotland the opportunity to equip themselves with the sustainable skills needed to reduce waste in school and turn their enterprising idea into a reality.
Anita Sharkey, Waste Education officer at The City of Edinburgh Council commented: “It was absolutely fantastic and I was really happy to be invited along, especially to be a dragon. I was blown away by the groups I saw, they were proper waste projects that would work. They had really thought through their pitch, including marketing activity, costs and how they would motivate teaching staff.”
Funded by the City of Edinburgh Council, workshops include marketing, finance, evaluation and effectively presenting their enterprising project ideas.
