School uniforms were replaced by glamorous outfits, the red carpet was rolled out and some big names were in attendance at St. Oliver’s Community College on Thursday last to celebrate the work of 12 transition year students who are the stars of a series of TV shows looking at ways to tackle climate change.
Under the creative direction of teacher Ronan McQuillan, the school canteen was transformed into a theatre complete with red carpet, surrounded by black drapes where the students were waylaid by paparazzi, and microphone-wielding interviewers.
The Climate Challenge is a six-part show, produced by local film maker Declan Cassidy, that sees four teams each create a TikTok with a climate action message in the areas of sustainable fashion, food, homes and lifestyles.
Each team of three students was assigned a mentor – owner and founder of online second hand designer fashion store ‘Offset Fashion’ for fashions, award winning chef of celebrated Dublin restaurant ‘Etto’ food, interiors architect and author Natasha Rocca Divine for homes and proprietor of Trim-based sustainability store ‘Cult Zero’ for lifestyles.
The mentors were in Drogheda to watch the four TikToks created by the students and to ptesent awards to recognise the responsible role that the young people had played in volunteering to undertake the challenge.
The TY students of St Oliver’s, under the guidance of teacher Jennifer Winters, began their climate action journey by visiting The Rediscovery Centre, Ireland’s centre for the circular economy, where they were given workshops in sustainability.
With this newly acquired knowledge they set about planning a social media campaign that would end in them creating a TikTok with an environmental message on their assigned topic.
With Halloween fast approaching, the fashion team, chose to encourage people to make their own Halloween outfits from old clothes rather than buying synthetic costumes that would probably only be used once.
The food team looked took the humble apple pie and demonstrated how to use local ingredients to bake their own rather than buying commercial apple pies with the long list of processed ingredients they often contain.
The homes team set about convincing people to swap old energy-guzzling light bulbs for efficient LED ones while the lifestyles team promoted the health and sustainability qualities of raw food for cats and dogs over commercial processed foods.
All four clips were screened for the first time to an appreciative audience at the awards night which included the four mentors, the students, friends and families.
“We’re hoping that the wonderful work of these students will be the start of something that will grow,” said producer Declan Cassidy.
“We’re asking people to follow The Climate Challenge on Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook or Youtube where they can see the students work and where we’re going to continue posting content that gives people ideas on how they can play their part in the fight against climate change.”
The Climate Challenge will screen, in the new year, on DCTV (802 on Virgin Media) and on the DCTV online player (DCTV.ie). The series was funded by Coimisiún na Meán under its Sound and Vision initiative.
A video charting the journey of the students can be seen HERE where links to the social media accounts can also be found.
